When I Grow Up
by Nano-Moose
Summary: When Daxter literally blows a major mission, Jak decides to go his own, at least for a little while. Unfortunately for him, he is captured...but after he gains his captor's trust, he must decide whether to help her. Non-Romance, I swear.
1. Chapter 1

A new idea, which I'm not sure that you guys will like.  
  
Vader: Hey, if you had fed me better, I might have given you some DECENT ideas. (Tries to look victimized) But no, poor little Vader has to survive each day on the most meager of rations..  
  
Necralis: If you keep talking, I'll fix it so that you can't open your mouth enough to fit PEAS in there. Are you telling me that junk food isn't good enough for you?  
  
Vader: For YOU, maybe. I'M a muse. Muses need fresh fruit and natural stuff - (Necralis makes a face) oh, fine. Be like that. (Sniff) As if I wanted to stay working for YOU, anyway. (Walks away, muttering) Maybe I'll go inspire your sister..  
  
Necralis: OH NO YOU DON'T, FUZZBOY! (Hurls herself at the muse and attacks him with a spanner)  
  
**D** I don't own - Ow! Quit it! - I don't own Jak or Daxter. I also don't - arrgh! Keep your paws to yourself! - don't own Haven Forest, cool as it is. The girl, Miala, she is mine. Oof! Take this! (Aa-aag!) I think the little bomb thing is mine (No, it's mine!) SHUT UP! Eerhg! I don't - AAH! Aah - just - ah - just read - you know what's - AAARRRRRGH! Just - just promise me (gasp, choke, cough) promise me you'll voo..  
  
~ -  
  
When I Grow Up  
  
Jak flipped backwards, pulling out his Blaster as he span through the air. The Krimson Guards in front of him brought up their guns, trying to hit the young man as he dodged and darted nimbly.  
  
"Jak - I think I'm gonna be siiiick- "  
  
"Now is NOT a good time, Daxter," Jak snarled at the ottsel perched on his shoulder. "I'm trying not to get shot, if you haven't noticed.."  
  
They were in the fortress prison, doing a job for Krew. The weapons dealer had informed them that there was a prototype bomb hidden in the facility. Jak didn't know how he had managed to find this out, and he wasn't even sure he wanted to know. Krew, being Krew, had ordered them to either take it out and remove the threat to his business, or somehow steal it so he could copy the design and sell it on the black market.  
  
Either way, he had said, there would be a bonus in it for them - provided they didn't get killed. But he would boost their pay substantially if they brought the bomb back intact.  
  
No sooner had Jak thought that than the thing became much more difficult. One of the Guards at the back of the squad was yelling into his com - a sure sign that reinforcements were on their way. Jak blasted the lead guard through the eye, whisked around and bashed a second over the head with his gun, then had to duck as a bolt of taser fire sizzled over his head. He smelt burning hair, amidst the other smells of sweat and fear and ozone in the confined space. From his position on the floor, he managed to kick the man's legs out from under him then leapt to his feet and stuck a boot in. From a nauseating crunch Jak realized he had crushed the Guard's windpipe.  
  
For the moment he was winning, but he knew that wouldn't last. Already he was tiring and he had no Dark Eco charge, having wasted it on the KG that had been guarding the front of the facility.  
  
"Should have tanked the mission right there," he muttered to himself.  
  
"But Krew would have had us stuffed AND roasted!" Daxter shrieked over the shouts of "Shoot him! SHOOT HIM!"  
  
"WAS I TALKING TO YOU?!?"  
  
"Hey, Jak - there it is! THERE IT IS!" Daxter pointed feverishly at a small, flat device shaped like a teardrop, slipping slightly and accidentally pulling Jak's scarf over his eyes. It was hooked up to a large amount of wires, simply sitting on a bench out in the open.  
  
"I can't get to the damn thing IF YOU'RE BLOCKING MY FIELD OF VISION-"  
  
Just then one of the Guards grabbed him by his collar and slammed him up against the wall.  
  
"Did you think you had WON?" The KG's voice managed to sound contemptuous even through the distorting effects of his mask.  
  
"I don't have time to think," Jak said calmly, and brought the butt of his gun into the guard's groin.  
  
'You'd think they'd have more armor there,' he mused to himself, as the guard collapsed into a groaning heap and he slid to the ground. Hurriedly switching his gun to Scatter, he finished off the remaining KG with a teeth- rattling BANG!  
  
Jak staggered to the bench and picked up the tiny device. It fit neatly into the palm of his hand, like it had been designed to go there. Aside from a serial number, it was completely unmarked, and it was warm as though it had been lying in the sun.  
  
Tucking the thing into the pouch at his side, he said to Daxter, "We should get going. One of the Red Heads was yelling into this thing-" he nudged the still squawking com with his boot- "so this place is gonna be crawling with 'em in a few minutes." Sighing, Jak brought the heel of his boot down, and the com's squawking was abruptly silenced.  
  
"Plush Toy had better pay us a lot for this," Daxter growled.  
  
Jak rolled his eyes. "More than likely he'll set us some brand new, even tougher mission. Is it just me or is he a bastard of the highest caliber?"  
  
"It ain't just you, amigo,"  
  
"Yeah, well, whatever, let's just get out of the god-forsaken fortress."  
  
Daxter leapt onto Jak's shoulder-plate and the duo turned to leave.  
  
And froze as a horribly familiar whine sounded behind them.  
  
Daxter turned around the fastest and yelled "SECURITY TANK!" which was enough warning for Jak. The young man bolted for the door, having had enough experience with the huge, heavily armed KGS tanks to know not to stick around.  
  
Just as the tank orientated it's top-mounted cannon at them, Jak hurled himself forward and managed to get himself through the door as the tank unleashed a flurry of chain gun fire after the fleeing pair. Out on the dilapidated streets of the Slums of Haven City, he swung himself onto a conveniently unattended Zoomer and put pedal to the metal, speeding away from the tank which was left trying to fit itself through a door that was too small by several meters.  
  
"HA HA! That's what you get when you take on the Furred Wonder!" Daxter yelled, then snatched an object from the seat of the Zoomer - a small, oddly shaped object that was strangely warm..  
  
Jak wheeled around, and shouted "Daxter - stop-!"  
  
But it was too late. Daxter had already tossed the tiny bomb at the tank. It bounced once, hit the wall, bounced again -  
  
Then it exploded with an almost musical 'snap-whoosh', an improbably large corona of glittering silver fire erupting from the point of contact. The blast caught several fleeing civilians, incinerating them instantly and leaving their ashes for the wind.  
  
Jak yelled and jammed his foot onto the accelerator, the stolen Zoomer rocketing forward just ahead of the blast radius. He twitched the steering slightly and just scraped a wall, removing paint but nothing worse.  
  
As Jak wended his way through the crowd of pedestrians, heading for the Port, Daxter turned to him and said brightly, "So, what do ya suppose Krew's gonna make us do next?"  
  
Suddenly Jak jammed on the brakes, stopping with a jolt that almost threw Daxter into the street.  
  
"You're not going to find out."  
  
"I - what?"  
  
"I said, you are not going to find out. You almost got both of us killed, and you lost the thing that Krew sent us to get. You docked 150 creds off our pay. I'm sorry, Dax, but we can't afford to lose any more. For the next mission, I'm leaving you behind. You can flirt with Tess or something - just don't try to follow me."  
  
For possibly the first time in his life, Daxter was struck dumb. His brain was trying to work itself around this new concept. Not going with Jak? But - they had always been together. Even when Samos had tried to separate them, long ago, back in Sandover Village. He had locked Daxter in a cupboard and made Jak go and fetch a flask of Eco from the other side of the Forbidden Jungle. But Daxter had been teaching himself lock-picking. He had busted out, chased after Jak and succeeded in convincing him to try another practical joke.. the one that had resulted in the pair of them sneaking off to Misty Island, where the trouble began..  
  
Daxter's lock-picking skills had come in handy in Haven. But now Jak decided he didn't need the loud-mouthed ottsel following him around any more. It was either this, Jak told himself, or blowing some major mission that would get them both killed. The more he thought about it, the more he figured it was the right thing to do.  
  
If only Daxter would stop sniveling quietly.  
  
"Oh, don't give me that," he said finally. "You're so pathetic. Look, you always said how we should just try and find a way to get home. You never really had to come with me."  
  
"Pathetic, am I? Maybe that's it. You're just to embarrassed to be seen with me anymore!"  
  
"No, Dax, that's not-"  
  
"Well, it that's the way you feel, then so do I!" Without another word, Daxter leapt off the Zoomer and vanished into the crowd.  
  
Jak yelled "DAX!" but the weasel had already disappeared.  
  
'Fine.' He thought to himself. If he wants to be that way.. he accelerated, going past one of the City's many propaganda boxes. These were simply loudspeakers that broadcasted the Baron's many assurances that the city was *perfectly* safe. Currently it was informing anyone in a 20 foot radius of his own description and promising that a loved one would be set free if anyone brought him in. Jak very much wanted to blast the annoying box into smithereens, but the KG didn't seem to like people showing defiance. Instead he contented himself with flipping it the finger as he passed.  
  
Hoping to God that no one recognized him (they rarely did) Jak angled the Zoomer towards the Port, hoping that, whatever mission Krew sent him on next, it would be worth the effort.  
  
~ -  
  
Ooooooh. This could be BAD. Jak fighting with Daxter? Don't worry, the title will become relevant in time. DP is refusing to come out of it's corner, so it's on hold for a bit till I get inspiration. Speaking of inspiration..  
  
Vader: (popping out from behind Necralis) look what she did to me! LOOK!  
  
(Duly looking, the readers realize that Vader is now a cyborg - part of his tail, one of his eyes and ears, a paw and a leg are now constructed out of steel.)  
  
Necralis: I didn't realize a spanner could do so much damage. (hugs the cyborg muse) but now he's so much cooler. I've always wanted a cyborg muse! (laughs evilly) Now, VOO! Tell me what you thunk of this! I MUST KNOW!!! I realize that it sounds a little like 'Aligning of the Fates', by Darksbane the Ultra-mighty, but it's not. I swear. I have a plot in mind. It involves a brand new, shiny OC who wandered into my head a while ago.  
  
Oh, and as soon as I activate my DeviantArt account, I will put up some piccies I've been drawing! I'm not that good yet, so go easy. Plz!  
  
It's at www.NoWingedVulture.deviantart.com  
  
Go there.  
  
Bye for now! (waves) 


	2. Chapter 2

In - incredible talent? ME?!? Are you sure you're talking to the right girl? Aww, shucks, Quex. (blushes) I never thought it was that good. You made my day. ^_^ Well, if you want to read some more of my creations, Darkened Paths is on the next page of the site. The plot is my sister's brainchild, but I actually wrote it out.  
  
Vader: She managed to cudgel her brain into giving her some more ideas for that fic, so a new chapter will soon be forthcoming.  
  
Necralis: (nods) Yassah. In the mean time, entertain yourself with this new chapter. No more school (read: purgatory) for me, so more time to write fics. Good news, neh? I thought so. Now. Let us continue this probably rather short tale of drama, tragedy, capture, escape and disappointment.  
  
**D** yahs know teh drill by now - Naughty Dog own Jak II, which I finished for the second time today. (: P) Miala is mine. Oh.. I said stuff about her in the last Disclaimer, but I didn't put in the chappie. Whoops. (shrug) meh, she added an element of mystery. Dalium.. MINE! The whipcord actually belongs to Lucas Arts, I think.. Jango Fett uses it. And I think that's it. Short this time, neh? Neh. (nod)  
  
~ -  
  
When I Grow Up  
  
Chapter 2  
  
As Jak weaved through the crowd of pedestrians on his JET-board, his mind flew back to the conversation he'd had with Krew.  
  
' "This bomb.. you say the blast was silver?"  
  
"Yeah, really bright. It had a huge blast radius - bigger than a medium sized plasmite mine's."  
  
Krew had turned away, looking pensive. "So.." he had muttered to himself. "He thinks he can harness dalium.."  
  
Jak held up his hands. "OK, I'm sure this is all very revealing for you, but I still have no idea what the hell that thing was. I'm sure you're already hatching some scheme for a brand new mission, which probably involves blowing something or someone up. I'm not saying I don't like blowing things up, but a guy's gotta have some reason for doing so, otherwise people think he's a lunatic."  
  
Krew turned back to him, looking suspicious. "It was a dalium bomb, I'm certain of it. One of the most powerful explosives.. but dangerous, very dangerous. Only takes a loud noise to set the things off.." '  
  
Krew, naturally, had told him to check out what he said was a dalium mine on the fringe of Haven Forest. And, also naturally, had promised him a bonus if the Baron was in fact trying to manufacture dalium bombs and Jak managed to bring one back intact.  
  
' " You shouldn't even need these explosives," the fat merchant had said, handing him a couple of surprisingly heavy cylinders. "But better to safe than sorry, ey?" '  
  
Tess, being Tess, had immediately enquired as to the whereabouts of his orange fuzzy ball-and-chain. Jak had just shrugged and walked out the door. He didn't want to think about where Daxter was, because it made a stab of guilt go through his heart.  
  
'He'll be okay,' he'd told himself. 'the little guy managed to look after himself for two years all alone on the streets of Haven City, he can do it again.'  
  
Jak bared his teeth as he remembered how Daxter had even ended up alone. Looked after himself so well, he forgot about Jak. Two years.. two long years he had spent in the confines of the Fortress Prison.. arrested for no reason, tortured horribly, left for dead when the Baron's experiments failed.  
  
But he would find a way to give the Baron a taste of his own medicine.. hopefully by ramming the bottle down his throat.  
  
He looked around and jumped. He had reached the northwest gatelock without even realizing it.  
  
'Switch to Decaf,' he said to himself, and slid a security pass into the lock. Green Clearance.. fitting for Haven Forest, one of the only green places left in this whole damn future.  
  
This was probably the first time he'd been here.. the first time he'd done any mission without Daxter.  
  
But he didn't realize his mistake until long after the gatelock door thumped shut behind him.  
  
- * - * - * -  
  
Meanwhile, Daxter was wishing he had not been so hasty. He had already been stepped on five times, and kicked six times.  
  
'Stupid, fucking, inconsiderate bastard of a city,' he thought to himself.  
  
"Hey, buddy, watch the clodhoppers!" he yelled at a man who had the oversight to stand on Daxter's long, twitching tail. The man looked around for whoever had yelled at him, and, seeing no one, shrugged and walked on.  
  
"Oy, hard of hearing, I was TALKING to you!"  
  
The man continued to ignore him.  
  
"FINE!" Daxter stomped onwards, fuming at the man, but fuming at himself even more for being so hasty. Maybe he could go back and apologize and Jak would have cooled off a little about the whole nearly-getting-them-both- killed thing. Hell, it was worth a try, wasn't it?  
  
'Oh, but Jak won't have cooled off,' said a snide little voice in his head. 'It's just him, you remember that time you fixed Keira's Zoomer so that it would only fly in reverse? Took him MONTHS to get over that.'  
  
"A weasel can hope!" he said aloud, oblivious to the stares of passersby.  
  
'But you're useless!' said the voice. 'When was the last time you saved his butt? HE'S always the one doing the butt-saving. He earns the money, he takes the risks. And what do you do? Sit around on his shoulder and complain.'  
  
"I busted him out of prison! He would never have gotten out without my help."  
  
'He could have, you know. He got himself out of the chair, because you were too lazy to bother to try and save him for two years. Those experiments.. everything he's gone through, it's your fault.'  
  
"It is not," he whispered, but he was lying to himself and he knew it.  
  
'You could never survive on your own. The only reason you tried to save him was because you knew you wouldn't live for much longer without him.'  
  
"I could earn my own money."  
  
The little voice sniggered. 'Prove it.'  
  
"I WILL!" Daxter looked up and grabbed hold of the tail fin of a passing Zoomer, hitching a ride so the owner wouldn't notice.  
  
'You DO realize you've been arguing with a voice in your head.' The little voice pointed out.  
  
Daxter stood stock-still for a moment. 'You better figure something out soon,' he told himself. Quietly. So the voice wouldn't hear him. 'The isolation is having psychological effects.'  
  
- * - * - * -  
  
Jak stepped warily into the shade of the trees in Haven Forest, gun at the ready. Despite the peacefulness of his surroundings, he had learned a long time ago that appearances could be deceptive. In spite of this, he always enjoyed missions in Haven Forest. It was soothing and reminded him of Sandover Village, or more specifically, the Forbidden Jungle nearby. Most had been afraid of the jungle, but Jak had liked it. No one would bother him there, and the Precursor temple had been one of the coolest places to explore.  
  
The Giant Plant, he thought, and that reminded him to keep on his guard. There were few Metal Heads in Haven Forest, though. That was probably why it was still a forest, not a barren wasteland of scattered logs.  
  
The moment that thought crossed his mind, he saw something sparkling bronze, through the trees. He slowly edged closer, then with on swift movement, ripped the branches aside and aimed his gun at -  
  
Nothing. The bronze gleam appeared to have been a trick of the light. Sighing and lowering his gun, he turned away. He had a job to do - he shouldn't have let himself get distracted.  
  
Completely without warning, something shot out of the bushes to his left, pinning his arms to his sides. He yelled and struggled, but the material was some kind of steel cord, incredibly strong and impossible to break without some kind of super strength.  
  
Dark Jak, he thought to himself.. but the shock wouldn't allow him the concentration he needed to change. Daxter might have been able to undo the cord.. but he was back in Haven City, probably moping about Jak deserting him.  
  
Then, adding to his amazement, someone rolled out of the bushes, came up to her knees and drew a bead on his head, all before he'd had time to blink.  
  
"FREEZE!" she yelled. It was so KG, but she wasn't dressed like a KG. No armor, not even the insignias that Ashlin wore.  
  
"What the - ? Who the fuck are YOU?" Jak demanded, before he remembered which end of the gun he was on.  
  
He'd been caught. Captured by some girl armed with a peashooter of a gun, and there was nothing he could do about it.  
  
'Man, this sucks,' he thought.  
  
"You don't know? I know who YOU are. Drop your weapon," ordered the girl. He complied. She was staring at him like he was the greatest present she'd ever received. "You're Jak, aren't you?"  
  
"Do you always begin your conversations this way?" Jak struggled again, but the whipcord refused to break or even loosen slightly.  
  
Now that he could get a closer look at her, Jak realized she was young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, dressed in a dark green, tight-fitting shirt, white pants that came to her knees and tall, well fitting boots. Her hair was dull silver touched with green, cut short in bangs that ended just on her eye brows. Her eyes were also silver, but bright, and they glittered strangely in the light filtering from the trees. At first he thought she was wearing gloves, but she wasn't - her hands were tattooed in an intricate feather pattern that gave her the appearance of wearing a pair of feathery, fingerless gloves.  
  
"Oh no, only for criminals. Did I do this right? Did I say all the right things? You ARE Jak, aren't you?"  
  
Jak squinted his blue eyes at her. "Are - are you a Red Head? A Krimzon Guard?"  
  
The girl's finger tightened on the trigger of her gun - one of the cheap, mass-produced handguns known as Pingers. They had roughly the stopping power of a badly thrown dust bunny, but this one had a strange attachment clipped to the barrel - that must fire the whipcord.  
  
Weak the gun may have been - but a shot to the head at point-blank range would kill him as effectively as a sledgehammer to the brain.  
  
The girl narrowed her strange silver eyes suspiciously. "I'm asking the questions here! Now, I asked once before, and I'll ask you once again, and this time I expect an answer. Are you Jak?"  
  
Jak considered bowing mockingly, but he'd probably fall on his face. He saw no point in lying - his face was plastered across the city. "The one and only."  
  
The girl punched the air and danced around with every appearance of utter delight. She was obviously not a KG - those guys didn't like to show emotion. Especially not joy. "Alright! I'll show that pompous bastard, he never managed to catch you even though he's been trying for MONTHS! And I did it the first time I met you! Oh.." she remembered herself and pointed the gun at him again. "Don't move. I don't wanna have to shoot you."  
  
This was getting stupid - Jak wanted to know what was going on. "OK, before we go any further, I want to know two things. One, who the hell are you? And two, why the heck have you tied me up?"  
  
"I'm - a guard. Sort of. My name is Miala.. though I don't know why I'm telling you. You're a criminal. Don't the Guards arrest people any more?"  
  
Jak couldn't resist prodding her slightly. "You're not a Krimzon Guard. You don't look like one, you don't sound like one, you don't act like one, and you're a girl."  
  
She pouted. "So what if I am a girl? There are female Krimzon Guards."  
  
Jak smirked. "I've only ever known one, and she only got there because of her connections. I'm not saying she's not a great Captain, but they never would have accepted her if she hadn't been Praxis's daughter."  
  
She stared suspiciously at him. "You know a lot. If you must know, I want to be a guard. I wanna be the best ever and show that orange-haired bastard I can beat him any day of the week."  
  
"You mean Erol?"  
  
The silver-eyed girl looked at him. "You know him?"  
  
Jak looked bitter. "We've met," he said shortly.  
  
"Any way, you're the most wanted man in Haven, so if I captured you and delivered you to Praxis, I'd be able to finally become a guard. I did what no one else could.." Her voice petered out and her eyes became dreamy.  
  
Jak stared at her incredulously. "Do you know the Baron's philosophy is on good men? I hate to hear what it is on good women. Even if you did manage to get me to the fortress without getting shot, I doubt he'd accept you."  
  
Miala hesitated, and he knew he'd struck a nerve. Suddenly, her face hardened. "Prisoners keep their mouths shut if they know what's good for them," she snarled, then she searched him for weapons. She had no difficulty in finding his Morph Gun, as it was about as long as his arm and had been in his hand when he was tied up. His knife and the explosives Krew had given him soon disappeared into a pouch on her belt. Swiftly untying the cord, then just as quickly tying his hands behind his back, she started urging him forward with nudges from her gun.  
  
"We're going back to the city, Outlaw," she said. Outlaw.. that was what the Krimzon Guards always called him. When they weren't calling him 'Eco- freak.'  
  
Did she know about his Eco induced powers? It didn't look like it. Should he just use Dark Jak to make his escape? But the silver demon was uncontrollable.. as much as he'd decided he didn't like this girl, he didn't want her to end up dead. And the one thing Dark Jak was best at was getting people dead.  
  
Should he tell her? Either she wouldn't believe him, or she'd watch him more closely..  
  
'Bide your time,' he told himself.. he'd been doing that a lot lately.. must have been the absence of anyone else to talk to. 'you'll get your chance.'  
  
All he could hope for was that he'd get it soon.  
  
~ -  
  
All done! (clapclapclap) Oh, I have a query. How do you get ff.net to show Italics in your fics? I use Microsoft Word, but I can't get them to show up. It's annoying, because I can't have dreams and tit bits. If someone could help me out, it would make me so much happier! And when I'm happy, I write more!  
  
You may remember I said I was proud of the last chapter. This was because I did a fight scene without resorting to Dark Jak. And it was still pretty exciting! But don't you DJ fanses worry - I've been wanting to do a fight scene with him since I started writing. He's so cool.. the eyes, and the hair, and the fangs and the skin.. and the urge to kill anything that moves. Should make for fun fight scenes, I reckon. I'll do it soon.  
  
Vader: we hope - and I mean REALLY hope - to get more voos this time around. I was quite frankly discouraged by the fact that after three days, our total was 1. Just 1. Fireblast, you are quite right.  
  
Necralis: (points) what he said. If I could find some way to moniter the pageviews that my fic gets, I'll expect that number and no less. I only write this so people can read it.. and besides, if you voo, you can tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it! JUST WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!?  
  
Vader: I think she's done with her little rant. (a syringe retracts back into his cybernetic paw) now I don't have to use this thing. Dang. (pouts)  
  
Necralis: (nod) indeed. So, this is Necralis, saying WHY THE HELL IS JAK SO SHORT? I mean look at him! You wander around in Haven and compare his height to other people's! EVEN THE FAT GUYS ARE TALLER THAN HE IS!!! WHY THE FUCK?!?  
  
Sorry.  
  
Ciao, peoples. Hope you enjoyed my chapter, and hope you bother to actually SHOW it. (nudge nudge, wink wink) 


	3. Chapter 3

A... third... chappie? My, this is getting a little bit long. Well, that's a pity coz I'm gonna have to have three, maybe four more chappies to complete it.  
  
Vader: yeah, like you MIND writing more stuff now that you have that PIECE OF ELECTRICAL CRAP which you term a computer.  
  
Necralis: All right, I lied. I NOW have a computer of my VERY OWN, a Toshiba laptop with all the things a writer needs. That is, Microsoft Word and very little else. BUT IT'S ABSOLUTLY COVERED IN JAK STUFF! (hugs the laptop, then, so Vader doesn't feel left out, hugs the muse, nearly strangling him) WABAZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!  
  
Vader: (covering his ears) she means 'Yay' in layman's terms. Gah, I hate it when she gets all – erk (Necralis squeezes him even harder then drops him) gets all over-affectionate like this. Tryna PRETEND she actually DOESN'T HATE ME.  
  
Necralis: You're a cute fuzzy animal. I'm an evil authoress. Guess which is more popular (sigh) they don't like it so much when I torture you.  
  
Vader: HAH!  
  
Necralis: (grins evilly) So I'll have to be sneakier... anyway... He hee, thanky for ya voos. Maybe I should do a reviewer response... thing... to explain to all ye readers what exactly Vader is. Eh, Shadow Fox? Would that be useful? Not that anything I do is ever exactly useful... (mutters something about chickens.) ANYWAYS!! (pulls on a black authoring tunic and cloak) heh, do yas like me noo outfit? (strokes it lovingly) courtesy of many, many hours spent staring at the ceiling muttering to myself. I astound myself sometimes...  
  
**D** I own very little! (beats away lawyers with a stick) No Jak! BUT MIALA IS MINE AND YOU CAN'T STEAL HER WITHOUT PERMISSION!!! Or I will eat you. Or something.. All typo complaints must be written on a 4 by 5 inch piece of card and then eaten. hm.. i've used up my supply of capital letters. whoops. except for the Q's. QQQQQQQQQQ. there we go!  
  
When I Grow Up (ah, good, I found a spare canister...)  
  
Chapter Three  
  
~ -  
  
1... 2... 3...  
  
"Move your butt, Outlaw!  
  
1... 2... 3... 4...  
  
"Don't make me ventilate your skull!"  
  
1...  
  
"Keep moving or I'll fry your brain!"  
  
Jak ignored her, and concentrated on counting the seconds it took for her to decide he needed extra encouragement. This girl had proven that she was fully incapable of going for more than 4 seconds without a threat of some kind. Well, at least one thing was certain: if the Baron ever decided to rethink his policy on women and the Krimzon Guard, Miala was a likely candidate for the second ever woman on the force.  
  
I wanna go home, a small voice in his head whined. But home was hundreds of years away, and no place in 'Haven' city was safe enough to call home, thanks to Praxis and his ongoing campaign against rebellion.  
  
Miala had marched him a long way deep into a place in the Forest he was pretty sure he had never seen before. The vines and various green things around were very thick, and he was tripping more often, earning pokes, prods, and once, an extremely painful whack around the temples with the Pinger. He bit back several swearwords that would hike the rating of this story up a couple notches, and ran through his plan again. It was a simple plan, (some might say, very quietly, that it was simple-minded) and all he needed now was some form of quick exit.  
  
"What are you looking at, Outlaw?" demanded his captor, distracting him for a second. "Hoping your pals the Metal Heads will come and save you?"  
  
Jak sincerely hoped that she was being sarcastic, but no – when he looked back, her face was totally straight.  
  
"Metal Heads don't make very good pals. Trust me on this." 'And on the other stuff I said too,' he added silently, as if that would make any difference.  
  
"Baron Praxis said you've been working with the Metal Heads," Miala continued, blatantly unaware of Jak's thunderous expression. "You passed vital information on the weaknesses of the wall, allowing them to break through."  
  
Jak had to struggle with the darker side of his nature then, as Dark Jak started screaming to get out and teach this girl a lesson. 'She's just a kid', screamed his conscience, 'she can't possibly know anything about what really happened..'  
  
He forced himself to laugh harshly. "Gees, if that's all Praxis can come up with, I think he's losing his touch."  
  
Miala went very pale, and it was obvious she was trying to stop herself from slapping Jak across the face. "Don't you DARE laugh, you bastard!" she snapped. "My parents died in that attack, Outlaw,"  
  
"My parents died before I even knew them," Jak said brutally. "I don't think that gives me the right to jump to conclusions about people."  
  
"The Baron protects us from the Metal Heads!" Miala said desperately... but her resolve was starting to fail.  
  
"Yeah, by making deals with the Metal Heads, promising Eco he doesn't have, and using the City's supply for... other purposes," sneered Jak. He turned away from the trembling girl in disgust, then almost froze at he saw something that filled him with hope. Hope that he could get away from the crazy girl before she lost it and killed him. Or he was forced to kill her...  
  
There was a Gate-lock up ahead. Smaller than the ones he usually went through, but at the moment Jak didn't particularly care. Just so long as he could get into Haven and lose himself in the crowds before Miala caught on.  
  
A painful poke in the small of his back gave him an excuse to turn around with a furious expression on his face, one he changed to shock as he looked over the girl's shoulder. "What the..."  
  
There was nothing there, but Miala fell for it and turned to look around. "What are you looking-" The next thing she felt was a sledgehammer blow to the side of her head as Jak span and used his tied hands to give a solid whack that knocked her sideways into a tree, briefly knocking her out.  
  
"Oof," she said, more out of surprise than pain, before Jak took to his heels, his entire attention focused on reaching the Gate-Lock before she gathered her wits.  
  
He was only 100 metres away...  
  
~The Lock wasn't opening...  
  
75...  
  
~He'd left his guns behind... no chance of going back for them...  
  
50.  
  
~The Gate-Locks usually opened when he got this close to them...  
  
10 metres.  
  
~Still closed...  
  
5 metres...  
  
~ He was going to slam into it...  
  
The next thing he felt was considerable pain and shock, as he slammed straight into the stubbornly closed Gate-Lock. The world spun for a second, then he found his wits and lost his temper and started body slamming the door, with no apparent regard for his own safety.  
  
'Unrecognized DNA pattern,' said a cool female voice, apparently from the Lock itself. 'Gate Lock-down initiated.' This only enraged Jak more, and his attacks grew more vicious as he let forth a stream of impressive and unprintable language.  
  
A grinning, albeit slightly dizzy Miala emerged from the trees, a little scared by his display of temper.  
  
"Having fun?" she enquired.  
  
Jak rounded on her.  
  
"You knew... you knew the thing wouldn't open..." he sputtered.  
  
She shrugged, her Pinger firmly drawn on him once more. "I wasn't even planning to take you through there, originally," she said. "That leads to some kinda facility. No. I was going to take through there-" she pointed at a tiny little cave next to the Gate-Lock. He hadn't even noticed it. "It leads into the City, to the Slums." Her voice grew icy, her fingers tightened on the trigger of her gun. "Now, you're going to go through there, nice and slow, and I won't be forced to shoot you."  
  
Jak gave her an extremely venomous look, but it changed as he saw something out of the corner of his eye.  
  
"Uh... girl... I'd look behind you if I were you..."  
  
Miala smirked. "Like I'm going to fall for that twice," she said, stepping forward.  
  
That probably saved her life, as the Metal Head that had been sneaking up behind her swiped its claws at her. If she had been standing where she had been, the talons would probably have bisected her. As it was, they grazed her back, tearing through her shirt and ripping through the skin beneath. She gave a gasp of pain, dropped her gun and put her hand back to try and stem the flow of blood that was darkening her already grimy pants.  
  
The Metal Head, backed by two others, snarled triumphantly as the girl dropped face forward onto the grass. It was one of the tall, humanoid ones, more lizard-like than most, with long sharp claws and fangs.  
  
Miala, her face creased with pain, streaked with grime, was trying to reach her gun. With a growl, the Metal Head placed its clawed foot on her hand and kicked the gun away.  
  
The girl, however, was not yet dead, and managed to kick the creature in the stomach. This only served to infuriate the beast further, and it slashed at her face, opening long gashes across her forehead and finally knocking her out.  
  
Jak, meanwhile, was standing next to the door, his attention flicking between running for his life and trying to help Miala. Daxter usually acted as his conscience (such as he was) and his real one hadn't come into play for quite a long time (almost two and half years, in fact...). True, he hated Metal Heads, but he hated Krimzon Guards just as much, if not more.  
  
~She's not a Guard.  
  
They were doing the dirty work for him...  
  
~You're just going to let an innocent die?  
  
If Daxter were here...  
  
~He'd tell you to run for your life. And you'd ignore him, wouldn't you?  
  
She was stubborn... she had a temper...  
  
~So Dark Jak isn't in any way related to your temper, is that it? She could be a valuable ally, if that's all you care about...  
  
Miala had not called out for help once. Maybe she was used to looking out for herself...  
  
~Or maybe she doesn't expect any help from a dangerous criminal.  
  
"Ok, FINE!" Jak roared at his conscience, thoroughly sick of the argument. "She just better be grateful..." he muttered.  
  
And with that, he sped down the hill, switching his brain into combat mode.  
  
The first thing he did was yell, "Hey, pea brain!" The Metal Heads looked up from the helpless girl, distracted by this new annoyance. The one with blood on its claws reached out to swipe at the blonde elf, who timed the swing, leapt into the air and grinned as with a 'snik', the claws cut straight through the whipcord, the pieces falling to the ground. It was times like this he could almost thank the Baron for the combat training..  
  
Next he landed in a crouch and snatched up the Pinger, cocking it and loosing several shots at the lead Metal Head. The shots ricocheted off the metal armor on the thing's face, bouncing wildly off into various trees.  
  
"Shhhit!" hissed Jak. His own guns would have penetrated. But the Pinger was too weak. Time to get a little creative...  
  
He ducked under the second swipe from the creature's claws, slid beneath it and fired at its back. But no, there was armor there too. The bullets bounced away again, one flying straight over his head and nearly singeing his hair. He cast a quick glance over the Head, trying to find a weakness. There. On its neck. A gap in its armor. He'd have to get up on top of it...  
  
His train of thought was interrupted when the creature dived at him. He tried to back out of the way and felt the trunk of a tree behind him... that gave him an idea...  
  
With a split second left, he scrambled up the tree and felt it shudder as the Metal head crashed straight into it. Leaping down, he landed lightly on the creature's back, jammed the muzzle of the gun into the weakness in the armor and pumped the trigger for all he was worth. This time, the bullets burnt a sizzling hole in its flesh. The Metal head arched its back and gave a deafening screech, then went limp.  
  
There was no time to celebrate... as he rolled away from the dying Metal Head, something extremely heavy slammed into him and knocked him aside, one talon nicking his arm and drawing a line of pain from his elbow to his shoulder. There were still the other two to deal with...  
  
Miala appeared to have vanished. Jak wondered vaguely where she had gone until he noticed a strange dip in the ground.. that formed itself into the girl, curled up with her head between her knees. Her clothes had camouflaged her perfectly.  
  
Of course, camouflage doesn't work so well against Metal Heads, and suddenly a large metallic shape obscured Jak's view of her. Jak would have groaned aloud, had the tip of something silver, bloody and obviously quite sharp not pushed its way through the back of the Metal Head's neck. It was his own knife. Miala had regained consciousness and jammed it through the creature's neck, despite the fact that it had managed to open a gash in her side, which was still bleeding freely.  
  
"Wow," Jak would have muttered, if he had still had energy to spare for speech. The girl was a toughie.  
  
She crawled out from underneath the creature's corpse and staggered to her feet, pulling something compact and metallic from her pouch. His Morph Gun. Wincing in pain and bleeding from half a dozen wounds, she tossed it to him, Jak catching it one handed and extending it out to its working form.  
  
A few seconds later, the last Metal Head collapsed in a sparking heap, twitching slightly, with several large bullet holes stamped into its gut.  
  
Miala watched it fall, then turned back to Jak, his bloody knife still raised in her hand. Very pale from loss of blood, she took a faltering half step towards him before the exhaustion overtook her and she succumbed.  
  
As the knife fell with a thump, she collapsed facedown onto the grass.  
  
- * -  
  
She awoke to the usual twitter of birds that announced the setting sun, as well as a faint clicking noise of someone taking something apart.  
  
Hauling herself upright, she noticed Jak sitting a few metres away, the pieces of his gun arrayed around him.  
  
"So you're awake at last," he said, without looking up, as he unscrewed the Blaster attachment from its barrel. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't, Eco-patches being so cheap."  
  
Leaning up against a tree, she felt something scrape and realized there were green Eco-patches on the gashes on her side and face. The patches were glowing faintly even in the twilight, working their healing magic. Jak had one on his arm.  
  
"I have to clean out this thing a lot," he muttered, maybe to answer a question she didn't ask, maybe to break the awkward silence. "If I don't it jams up and won't fire. Sometimes I think Daxter hides candy wrappers in there."  
  
Miala got to her feet and held out her hands. Jak reluctantly threw her the Pinger.  
  
She stood and stared at him for a long time, her glittering silver eyes seeming to look at him and through him, as though she could figure him out just by looking at him.  
  
"You saved my life," she said finally.  
  
Not sure how else to reply, Jak said, "Yes."  
  
There was a long pause, during which Jak pulled several Glub Burger wrappers from his gun and stared at them in disgust. Then Miala asked the obvious question.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Jak finally looked up, his blue eyes cool and calm, which was a rarity when Daxter was around. "You aren't a Guard. I can't go around killing innocent people, or I become as bad as them," he said quietly. Jak suddenly dropped his serious manner and grinned. "Besides, that was some pretty kick-ass fighting."  
  
Miala nodded, a far away look in her eyes. "My brother taught me. Took him five years, until I was better at it than him," she said, smiling. "Broke his arm once," she added in reflection, her smile becoming faintly disturbing. "Bloodied his nose."  
  
"Do I need to ask-?"  
  
"We were playing Mercy. He didn't ask for it, I didn't give it. It got a little ugly."  
  
"I see." Jak shook his head slightly. "Now that we have that settled, I want to... ask you something."  
  
"I get to ask something in return."  
  
"Fair enough," conceded Jak. "Why did you really capture me? And none of that 'I wanna be a guard' crap," he added. "No one in their right minds wants to join the Krimzon Guards, unless they're idiotic or got some serious grudge to settle."  
  
Miala tilted her head, choosing her words carefully. "Reason one," she said with a sigh, "My parents were killed in the Metal Head attack on the city a few years ago. The one where they actually managed to break through the wall. No one knew how they did it, and, when you broke out of prison, the Baron said that you were the one behind it and he'd had you imprisoned for it."  
  
Jak's fist clenched and he quickly busied himself in cleaning out the trigger mechanism of his gun.  
  
"I didn't think about it at the time, and, since I'd never seen you, I thought you must have done it. I wanted to make sure a traitor like that never got a chance to do it again."  
  
"What changed your mind?" Jak said, frowning at her.  
  
"Seeing you fight just now. No one kills their allies with a grin like that, not unless they're seriously disturbed."  
  
Jak grinned again. "So how do you know it's not the latter?"  
  
Miala ignored him. "Reason two: My brother is imprisoned. He was caught with a group ripping off Krimzon Guard weapons and medical supplies. He didn't actually have anything to do with it – my father would have died of shame if he hadn't been dead already - he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, I was going to swap you for him.  
  
"Reason number three: I hate Erol."  
  
"Join the club."  
  
"He was the one who arrested my brother – the one who gave orders for him to be locked away despite the lack of evidence, and without a trial."  
  
Jak's face darkened. "I know the feeling."  
  
"The one who left my parents to die, even though my father was loyal officer for most of his life, even though he'd saved his butt on several occasions. The one who nearly killed me, though he probably doesn't remember it, destroying my parent's old home on suspicion of harboring Underground Rebels."  
  
"I take it you weren't."  
  
"No," the green haired girl said sadly. "My father was a real stickler for loyalty. I wanted to catch the person he hated most to prove I was better than him. Now... I want to ask YOU something."  
  
Jak crossed him arms and lifted his chin. "Provided it's not about my lack of furry cargo. Bad things were said, words misunderstood.. I don't particularly wanna talk about it." He wondered what Daxter was doing now. Most likely drinking himself into a stupor.  
  
Miala looked slightly confused, then said, "Oh... no, actually. I wanna know... Why do you hate the Baron so much? Why do you do... what you do?"  
  
Jak scowled heavily, hand unconsciously reaching up to rub a faint burn scar on his temple. "Praxis had me arrested. For no reason, no explanation. Then he had me experimented on like a plaything." He grimaced as he remembered waking up strapped down to a table, cold, bruised, terrified beyond belief. Then the pain. The awful, searing pain, and with it, a growing sense of darkness. He smiled grimly. "When I finally get my hands on him, I'm gonna ram my gun down his throat and make him beg for mercy. Then I'll kill him," he added, very, very softly. "I'll kill him as slowly and painfully as possible."  
  
"And the damaging of various city landmarks?"  
  
Jak shrugged. He didn't know about damaging landmarks. He had a tendency to damage PEOPLE, certainly, and facilities. But not landmarks. "I do jobs sometimes. That's what brought me here, actually."  
  
Miala stared long and hard at him, then brightened up.  
  
"Would your 'job', as you put it, have anything to do with a secret facility hidden in Haven Forest?" She then pulled the explosives out of her pouch. "And these?"  
  
"Sharp, aren't you?"  
  
Ignoring his sarcasm, she looked him straight in the eye and said, "I'm going to help you."  
  
"Ooooh no. I was hoping I could do this one with out useless creatures hanging around." (N&V: Man, is Jak usually this mean to Daxter? Vader: only when you're controlling him.)  
  
She frowned. "I am not useless. I know this place better than anyone else. I know how to get in there too, although it won't be easy. I can also handle myself in a fight, as you should know."  
  
"Yeah, you handle yourself really well in a fight," Jak said sarcastically. "That's why I had to save your ass."  
  
She gave him the finger. "And I need to repay you for the life-saving thing. And also," she added, wincing as though she was afraid he would explode, "I need a favor. Help me get my brother out of prison. It would make the Baron angry," she wheedled, "and you may need a diversion in the facility."  
  
Jak stared at her for a long time, still neatly screwing the laser sight back onto his gun, doing his best to mimic her penetrating silver stare.  
  
Standing up, he folded the gun down to its compacted size and put it into the holster in his back. "Ok," he finally agreed, though he had a bad feeling and was pretty sure that Daxter would be screeching "WHAT!?!" right about now. "Would now be a good time?"  
  
- ~ -  
  
Necralis: Done! See? What do you think? Man, is it long or am I just crazy?  
  
Vader: The latter.  
  
Necralis: (looking stricken) really? I wonder about that sometimes. (walks off saying 'split crack, split crack, used cold water' in a sing-song voice)  
  
Vader: Well. I better hide the fire-ax. Actually, I think it's both the latter and the former, coz this does look REALLY long in Microsoft Word.  
  
Necralis: (races back screeching and hugs the muse) Hear that? Didjas hear that? Vader AGREED with me!  
  
Vader: (turning blue) eeeeeerrrhhhh!!  
  
Necralis: Oh. Oops. (drops him on the ground and waves her hand to heal his broken ribs) Sorry about that.  
  
Vader: You are nuts.  
  
Necralis: True. (starts running around in little circles wailing to prove it)  
  
Vader: I had to pick the crazy one. Five different authors, and I get the one that thinks shrieking in public is a great way to get laughs. (scowls at the wailing authoress) I don't know why I keep her sometimes. I really don't.  
  
Necralis: But I'm not just insane. I got the powers of an authoress too! That makes me a DANGROUS lunatic.  
  
Jak, Daxter, Miala and Vader: (together) Oh, God help us! (Necralis gives a raucous shriek of laughter and starts running amok with a chainsaw)  
  
Voo sponses. (lets just say, that for this bit, I laid down my chainsaw and let them all live. For now anyway. (grins in an extremely deranged manner)  
  
[Shadow Fox777] Necralis: Vader is a small squirrelish thing, similar in looks to Daxter, only a lot cuter. He's red with black stripes and he makes sparkles when he walks. Um.. for a better idea of what he looks like, look at the muse in Jak and Daxter. The one you have to rescue for the Sculptor. He's American (I think), which is slightly unusual because I myself am Australian. All clear?  
  
[EagleRider] Weeeell, my reasons behind that are fairly complex.. I based it on the idea that he still has a conscience, and that he wouldn't murder a girl in cold blood just because she was ignorant. And also, have you noticed that he mellows out slightly near the end of the game? Yes, yes, I know – he has a nasty tendency to shoot people who annoy him, especially Krimzon Guards, but he obviously isn't completely heartless, because 1: he did go to save the Kid, and 2: He still lets Daxter hang around, right? Although not in my fic... ahem...  
  
And besides, if I had let him kill her when she jumped out at him, this fic would have been rather short, neh? ^_^  
  
I'm too lazy to write any more, and I did answer the questions, so yeah. Do you peeps think I should put more of what happens to Daxxie? I'm just no good at writing him; his witticisms are slightly beyond me. If you guys REALLY want it, and you beg on bended knee, and you tell every one how good a writer I am and make them review, I MIGHT consider it and make a concentrated effort. Emphasis on MIGHT.  
  
Toodle-pip for the moment, and, out of curiosity, how many of you have DeviantART accounts? (www.nowingedvulture.deviantart.com is mine) (starts chasing Daxter with a chainsaw again) AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! 


	4. Chapter 4

When I Grow Up  
  
By: Necralis and Vader  
  
- @ -  
  
The completely solo fic continues! The One that is NOT written with ANY help from my slacking sister. It's all MY idea ('cept for the bits that belong to Naughty Dog, o'course).  
  
Vader: MY idea, you mean.  
  
Necralis: You signed a contract, Vader.  
  
Vader: I... did?  
  
Necralis: Yup. After I gave you that jumbo bag of fairy floss. *Holds up a contract* Says right here that all ideas, plots, OC's and other intellectual properties that you submit henceforth belong to ME and me alone, unless-  
  
Vader: NOOO! Oh no, no, no, noooo, no, no...  
  
Necralis: Now you sound like Courtney Lilly.  
  
Vader: No, no, oh no...  
  
Necralis: *starts talking over him, though you can still hear him going 'NO! NO!' in the background* Who's heard stuff about Jak III? I just wanna tell you that I HAVE! Did you know that he gets BANISHED from Haven in this one? And then most of it collapses! AND AND AND he actually has a LIGHT form in this one! When he becomes light Jak, he turns electric blue, his eyes go brilliant white (the opposite of pools of blackness, I suppose) he can heal himself, make shields and he has WINGS! As in those things you find on angels that you use for flying! Neat! And you can ride lizards – lizards, people! Damn I can't wait.  
  
**Disclaimer**Jak and Daxter belongs to Naughty Dog. I only own the OC known as Miala, as well as various assorted original gadgets, elements, pedestrians and guard appearances (but they don't usually last very long ;)). And the Techie! He is mostly mine (apart from his looks), even though he's an idiot and... never mind. Just read and find out! I'm getting tired of writing Jak as a goody-goody, so we may have the appearance of someone (or something) who has no such qualms about killing things... *Fiendish smile* Please review. Constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged, however flamers are arse-holes and must therefore be handed over to Nny for *cough* 'judgment'.  
  
Chapter 4  
  
- ~ -  
  
"...So then he says it was MY fault I screwed up his mission, and dumps me out into the street! Like I WANTED to come with him in the first place!" Daxter stared dolefully at his drink, which was dark and thick and could probably be used as rocket fuel and/or highly volatile explosives. "Jak can be so STUBBORN sometimes. I mean, WHO got him out of the clink? WHO had to talk to weirdoes when he was a mute?"  
  
"He can be so mean sometimes," the blonde behind the bar said, agreeing, like she always did, with Daxter. The fact that Jak wasn't around right now to protest probably helped. She continued to mindlessly wipe the counter, though the probably centuries worth of grime, puke, spilt beer and... more interesting substances had coated the thing in sticky black goo that refused to succumb to even the most powerful cleaners.  
  
"Mean. He's always mean, yeah. Hey, babe, could'yer spare a refill for yer favorite ottsel?"  
  
Even though Daxter's words were starting to slur, Tess refilled his glass without conscience thought. (V&N: Now there's a knotty one. Does Tess think at all?)  
  
Daxter tried to lift the glass but to his annoyance found it stuck to the counter. It was one of the reasons people got drunk so quickly in here – set anything down on a surface too long and it took more effort than most were willing to expend to pry it off again.  
  
That, and more often than not they were trying to drown their fear of the Metal Heads and their miserable existence in Haven City.  
  
The Hip Hog Heaven Saloon (or to some lazier patrons, Krew's Bar) was the most popular bar in the city for no discernable reason. It was dank, dirty, had a very limited supply of very powerful alcoholic and also attracted some rather unusual clientele. Make too much fuss and you were likely to have your head blown off (or worse), but that didn't stop people from coming here and usually ending up pissed and drooling on the floor and getting kicked out by one of Krew's 'boys'.  
  
Daxter was not to that stage just yet, (though it wasn't from lack of trying) having found his way to the bar and attempted to drink most of it. This was due to his business idea failing, it being to seek out the few people in Haven who had boots worth polishing. Then he would attempt to con money off them... but this usually resulted in him running for his life, pursued by screeches of "OH MY GOD IT'S A GIANT TALKING RAT!" Finally tiring of having things thrown at him, he had retreated to the Hip Hog in the hopes that the combined distractions of Tess and drink would cheer him up slightly... or at least lift him a few inches out of his misery and loneliness.  
  
However, it was not working.  
  
Although he would never admit it, Daxter missed Jak so much it was starting to drive him mad. He knew Krew had sent him off on some other, probably suicidal mission (as was his custom) but aside from that, he had no clue as to where his friend had gone. Sometimes he was tempted to pluck up the courage to actually ask the fat-arsed merchant where he had sent Jak, but he knew Jak wouldn't want to talk to him – hell, he would probably use him as a bludgeoning tool on the next person who annoyed him.  
  
With that comforting thought, Daxter finally managed to pry his glass loose and downed half of it in one gulp, despite the fact that it was larger than his head. Straight away the room went kinda blurry. The fluorescent lights that decorated most of the Hip Hop started to smear his vision with swatches of brilliant colour.  
  
"Wonder what Jak's doin' now..." he hiccupped, wondering idly when Tess had invited her twin sister around... the sister who was multiplying every second. "Chattin' up some girl in a bar probly..."  
  
In his head, he could almost hear the little voice laughing at him.  
  
- * -  
  
As coincidence would have it, Jak was talking to a girl at that very moment. Although the way the conversation was going, it could hardly be referred to 'chatting up'. 'Arguing viciously' was a lot closer to the mark.  
  
"Five," snapped Miala. "I definitely counted five guards stationed around the facility."  
  
Jak snatched the FarScan binoculars from her grip and placed them to his eyes, ignoring her cry of protest. "I count seven," he said, frowning. "There are a couple coming out right now."  
  
"I couldn't see them before, you idiot... How do you plan to get into a place that's guarded so heavily?"  
  
"You think five Krimzon guards is heavy?"  
  
"There's bound to be more inside, and you forgot the turrets. There are seventeen of them visible from here."  
  
'Here' was the top of a cliff overlooking the mine, which was quite small. Though there was probably a lot more of it beneath the ground. Miala had shown him how to climb straight up the seemingly un-climb-able cliff face, using her spare whipcord and a few pitons. Jak had almost started to feel grateful to her for her help – until she started arguing with him over strategy.  
  
"We just go in, shoot everything, then blow it up," said Jak, frowning slightly. "How else?"  
  
Miala muttered something that sounded like "Men". Then she said "Isn't there a way to do it that doesn't involve shooting everything in sight?"  
  
Jak stared at her blankly for a while.  
  
"You know, stealth or somethi-" Noticing the blank look on Jak's face, she gave up. "You know what? I think we'll do it your way."  
  
Jak suddenly grinned, and by no means was it angelic. "You mean we go in, shoot everything, then blow it up?"  
  
"Sure. Have it your way. One thing though." Miala stood up, and Jak suddenly realized with chagrin that she was actually a few inches taller than he was. (N&V: Jak is short. I have no delusions whatsoever about his height. All you people who have been continually describing him as TALL, get off yer collective arses and play the game. AND PAY ATTENTION THIS TIME, DAMMIT! He is shorter than almost everyone, with the exception of Onin, Samos and Kiera.)  
  
"What's your frequency?" she enquired.  
  
"My...what? Frequency?" Jak blinked in confusion.  
  
"Your communicator frequency, you moron. So we can talk to each other. I assume you'll want to find me again if we get separated?"  
  
"I will?" Jak bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile. "Just kidding... Maybe. I know what you're talking about." Inwardly he cursed himself for forgetting. Two years in the future wasn't enough to teach you everything, it seemed. He gave her the number.  
  
"Can we move now?" he asked, once they were sure that she had memorized it and that he had remembered hers. "The longer we stay up here, the more likely it is that they'll spot us and shoot us down."  
  
"A sitting duck is a dead duck," Miala agreed, brushing grass off her knees. "My dad used to say that a lot," she continued, then discovered she was talking to thin air. Jak was already climbing carefully down the cliff, his gaze fixed on the Guards with a murderous glint in his eye.  
  
She slid down after him, yelling, "Wait UP, you bastard!" Jak ignored her and start running, fingers sliding a clip into his Blaster.  
  
The first Guard didn't even get a chance to scream. Jak's gun flashed and he fell over, clawing at a hole in his supposedly bulletproof armor. Two others were alerted by the noise and one started yelling into his com, whilst the other bellowed at his friends to get off their arses.  
  
Satisfied that they were earning their salaries, he turned around and was shot in the face as Jak took advantage of his momentary distraction. The rest yelled in shock and started towards the grinning convict, their shock- rods and blasters coming up to try and take Jak down.  
  
Then they were all fighting, blasting and punching and kicking and screaming, Miala leaping into the fray to tackle one to the ground and blast him in the back of the neck.  
  
The guy with the com was still doing his thing when Jak neatly kicked his feet out from under him, jammed his gun into his stomach as he fell and fired. He was the last to go down, but the damage was done as Jak heard a whirr above him and the gun turrets began to perk up in their cradles.  
  
Eyes wide, he snatched Miala by the front of her shirt and threw her at the wall. No time for embarrassment – that could come later.  
  
She let out a squawk of protest but was cut off as Jak's hand went over her mouth.  
  
"Don't move – don't talk – don't even think," he breathed, watching as the turrets swiveled, seeking out the intruders. They were probably safe where they were – most KG turrets had a sensor blind spot directly beneath them - but the Baron was getting smarter and this plant was supposedly top- security.  
  
After what seemed like a thousand years, the turrets stopped swiveling and settled back into their cradles, humming slightly and scanning slowly from left to right. Jak timed the sensor sweep with his eyes and figured they should just be able to get through without ending up as Swiss cheese if they ran – now.  
  
Paying no attention to Miala's foul swearing as he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her behind him, he ran along the wall, never looking back or stopping, racing for what he hoped was the door.  
  
"Open, open damn you!" he growled, pounding his fist against the unyielding metal, biting back all the curse-words he knew as he watched the turrets sweep around to investigate the noise...  
  
"OPEN YOU FU-" no one was more surprised than he was when it smoothly, quietly, obeyed his frantic screaming, revealing their 'savior' – an extremely startled looking guard who didn't even get to swear before Jak's gun went off and he went down. He dragged Miala after him as he went through the door then suddenly realized what he had been doing. The embarrassment caught up with him and he hurriedly dropped her hand as though it were the fanged end of a snake.  
  
She was completely unfazed by this, in fact she grinned at him as though this happened all the time. The grin lit up her whole face with almost demonic glee. The sort of smile that Daxter told him not to do because it freaked the hell out of him and also scared people – making Jak do it even more.  
  
Jak thought of Daxter, wondered again what he was doing. He felt a slight twinge of guilt as visions of Krimzon Guards and furriers and orange fur stoles danced around inside his head, then reminded himself that the ottsel had managed to look after himself all alone for two whole years. Two years before he had finally busted his friend out of jail. Two years in which he had wondered, endlessly, whether Daxter was all right, interspersed with 'God how I hate you' sessions with the Baron. And it was at that moment that Jak realized how much he missed his friend.  
  
It was the stupidest thing ever – he was in an explosive mine crammed full of who-knew-how-many Guards and there was a crazy girl grinning at him and more than anything he wanted the wisecracking weasel on his shoulder again. He missed their ability to snipe at each other and yell things, he missed his maniacal grin and him hitting on any girl who so much as glanced at him, he missed Daxter's occasional help and clumsiness. He even missed the ottsel's drunken singing, a rather cheap laugh even at the best of times.  
  
But more than anything he missed the loyal friend he'd had since childhood, the one that had always tried his best to be useful, despite his cowardly nature. One of his few remaining links to the world he had lost, probably forever.  
  
If I survive this, I'm going to find him and apologize. THEN I'll kill him.  
  
If...  
  
"Helloooooo. Mission control to Jak, we're losing you." Miala's voice crashed through his thoughts, making him realize that he'd brought the particular problem she represented on himself. She was still standing there, grinning at him.  
  
"I hate you."  
  
She raised an eyebrow at this statement. Jak shook his head and turned away, mind already edging away from Daxter and back to the task at hand, which was open the stupidly large door blocking their way into the mine proper.  
  
Miala stared at the console beside the doors. "Hmm...codes. Fifteen digits – my, my, we are paranoid, aren't we?"  
  
Jak came over, opened up the panel and ripped out most of the wires. No time for subtlety – the Guard with the com had probably set off every alarm in the whole damn place. The doors clicked complainingly, then shuddered and opened a few inches, revealing a cold, steel lined corridor.  
  
"I could have done that." Miala said with a frown.  
  
After squeezing themselves through the gap, they came across a second Guard – a tall, lanky man, not unlike Torn (which in Jak's mind was reason enough to shoot him). He brought up his tazer. Jak likewise brought up his Blaster, pulling the trigger and shooting him through the neck.  
  
"See what I mean? You have no finesse, no style." A third guard went down in a writhing heap, Miala's whipcord tangled around him.  
  
Jak said nothing, just shook his head, eyes raised to the heavens.  
  
Miala didn't want to surrender. "Ooh, can't find a comeback?"  
  
"Just shut up, Miala. We have a job to do."  
  
* -  
  
The man sitting at the desk in the power core of the mine was thin and fairly short. Unlike most of the other Guards in the mine, he was dressed casually, the only indication of his job a compact blaster in a holster at his side. He idly hummed a tuneless little tune to himself, pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose then tapped a few buttons on one of consoles surrounding him. The fact that he was separated from a fatal fall by only a thin-ish layer of steel didn't bother him. He couldn't see it from where he was standing, so why should he worry?  
  
He was a techie, the foreman of the operation, a computer expert who understood all the complicated machinery in the mine. He was also a bastard, being completely incapable of earning any sort of respect from the Guards under his command.  
  
The face of one of the said Guards flickered into life on a monitor, jittering slightly from interference.  
  
"Yes, Sir."  
  
"Report, Beta squad."  
  
"Alpha squad, Sir." This was said with barely disguised derision.  
  
"Whatever." The techie waved his hand dismissively. "Any unusual activity?"  
  
"Outer patrol is late for the shift change."  
  
"And?"  
  
"We got a call for turret activation a few minutes ago."  
  
"And?"  
  
"After that, the line went silent."  
  
"So?"  
  
"We think there may be intruders, Sir."  
  
"And what evidence do you have?"  
  
"Sir?"  
  
The techie shifted irritably on his chair. These Guards were so infuriatingly dense sometimes. "I should put it in simpler terms. Have you seen any intruders, that is, with your own eyes? Have I radioed in to tell you to be on the alert? No. I have not seen any intruders, and it's my opinion that counts here, Beta Squad."  
  
"Alpha."  
  
"Alpha what?"  
  
"Alpha squad...sir."  
  
"Very good. Now get back to your patrol and I want no more drunken nonsense about intruders, is that clear?"  
  
"Crystal, sir..." The Guard on the monitor was positively vibrating with suppressed rage. The techie thought he heard him murmur "you bastard" as the screen went dark again, but decided not to turn around. He could spill his coffee.  
  
"Good help..." he muttered to himself, walking directly past a monitor that clearly displayed a blonde man giving it an obscene gesture without looking at it. This was followed by a girl's smiling face appearing upside-down and waving good-bye, before the transmission cut out completely.  
  
All this made a faint whistling noise as it flew right over the head of the oblivious techie, who pressed a few random buttons before he decided to annoy the commander again.  
  
This time the Guard took a while to appear, and when he did, his face was sweaty and he was panting.  
  
"Sir, we got a serious situation down here-"  
  
The techie smiled to himself – obviously the air-conditioning had cut out again. He had just thought that when an explosion rattled the view from somewhere off-screen.  
  
"Those phantom intruders? They're REAL?"  
  
"It's not ghosts killing my men, Sir!"  
  
"How – how many?" the other man stuttered, wondering how just badly he had screwed up this time.  
  
"There are two of them... a man and a woman."  
  
"I mean how many casualties?"  
  
The Commander's face was shiny with sweat now – though he was clearly making an effort to compose himself. "Fifteen."  
  
"Fi-fifteen?!?"  
  
Another loud explosion rattled out, followed by the sharp noises of gunfire... and someone screaming. "Sixteen now, sir."  
  
"Who the hell are they?"  
  
"The man... damn, he's fast... he's blonde... light hair...blue tunic...the rebel!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"The eco freak!"  
  
"What about the woman?"  
  
"She's got green hair... looks kinda young... shit, they just took out three more of my people! Sir, we need back up..."  
  
"Is there an orange rat there as well?"  
  
"What the hell are you babbling about?!"  
  
"I guess not... look, I got two squads heading to your position. Just keep them away from the door..."  
  
"Can't- --er- --- you're---reaking--" Then the picture went blank.  
  
"Shit!" The techie rattled a few keys and when that didn't work, employed the age-old method of rapid repair – slapping the screen, which remained stubbornly blank. "What in blazes is going on down there? Answer me! Come in, dammit! Commander!"  
  
"........." Only static now emanated from the speakers.  
  
"Sweet Precursors..."The man slumped back in the chair, the realization sinking in – he HAD screwed up this time. Badly. Suddenly nothing seemed to matter any more.  
  
In the background, the warning klaxons started to wail.  
  
- * -  
  
"Miala! Get the door!" Jak yelled as he loosed a few rounds at the squad of Guards racing up the corridor. He then gave a yelp as a bullet grazed his left hand. He swore loudly and nearly dropped his gun, but then caught himself and blasted away with one hand, though he was not as accurate as he had been.  
  
"I'm trying, dammit! The defenses on this thing are no joke! SHIT!" she added, as the indicator light turned red for the fourth time.  
  
"Just take out the wires! Like I did!" Jak howled, switching to his Vulcan Barrel and sending a hail of bullets towards the Guards. "Now would be a good time! Sooner, even!"  
  
"There are bare wires in this thing! I'll get fried!"  
  
"DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I GIVE A SH- THANK YOU!" Finally the door slid open, just in time for Jak and Miala to leap through it. It slammed shut behind them, nearly trapping Jak's boot.  
  
Miala did not turn to help him up, too busy staring in awe at the chamber before them. It was-  
  
But no collection of capital letters can possibly describe how very, very big it was, nor any collection of adjectives describe the insane complexity of the machines kept within. There were hundreds of them, lifters and conveyer belts and completely unidentifiable things. All of which were being used to shift something silver and glittering from one end of the facility to the other. The chamber was criss-crossed with dozens of interconnected catwalks, making it resemble a giant game of snakes and ladders. And at the very top, like a cherry on a cake, hanging suspended over a sixty-foot drop, the power core of the facility – widely known as the 'Techie Box' – was locked into the ceiling with half a ton of steel and stone.  
  
"We should move," muttered Jak from his position on the ground, who'd seen it all before. Well, places like it, anyway.  
  
Miala snapped out of her daze to reply, "Don't you think we should just rest for a bit? No way anything could get through that door. I locked it. And anyway, I reckon the hard bit is over, don't you?"  
  
A premature statement, as it happened. Because it was then that the thirty- strong squad of Guards thundered out of the door on the left.  
  
"Yes, Miala," Jak said sarcastically. "I don't think the hard bit is just beginning."  
  
- * -  
  
The techie was furious. The intruders had breached the mine! His mine! On his watch! And now they were walking around in the center of the mine as though it was nothing! And they had blasted about a third of the Guards in the facility to get there. Just one man and a kid!  
  
He called in another squad, a big one, hoping that numbers would finish them off. Even though it hadn't worked before. It was all he could do! And they were not – were NOT – getting into this room. No way in hell. He commanded this operation, dammit!  
  
"I'M the commander here!" he shouted at no one as he pounded on his desk, just to reinforce his thought. The Baron had appointed him to this position. The Baron trusted him with the second most dangerous resource in the planet – after Dark Eco – and he would NOT screw it up!  
  
Another loud explosion rocked the room and his conviction evaporated. After dithering in the center of the room for a few seconds, another explosion rattled the room and he finally locked down security and hid.  
  
- * -  
  
Jak was fighting almost mechanically now, his hands and feet on automatic, when he felt a presence uncoil in the corner of his mind. Something powerful, reeking with darkness. It was so strong...it was almost as if a clawed finger tapped him on the shoulder, as if a harsh voice whispered in his ear...  
  
'Let me out.'  
  
He shook his head slightly as he ducked an over-ambitious swing from a Guard, then slammed his knife upwards into his gut. The girl was just a few metres away...  
  
'It'll only take a few minutes...'  
  
'I don't need you!' Jak thought furiously, but he might as well have been shouting at Daxter. Jak felt pain start to build in his temples, cold, slithering, horribly familiar pain...  
  
"Miala! RUN!" he screamed, actually dropping his gun to collapse on the ground, his hands clutched around his head.  
  
"But-" She glanced at the door, then back at Jak. She couldn't leave him on his own, but a faint, ominous purple glow was starting to build around him...  
  
"GO!"  
  
The girl wavered uncertainly for a second more, then saw the animalistic snarl on Jak's face and decided not to argue. She had just reached the door when horrible screams erupted from where Jak was... almost against her will, she turned to look... just as a huge purple flash of lightening exploded, burning smoking holes through armor and flesh.  
  
"AAAARRGH!"  
  
A Guard FLEW straight out of the throng, seemingly flung bodily by something... he screamed as he collided with the wall, then slid down it, broken like a toy.  
  
A second Guard staggered backward out of the jostling mass of armor, clutching his face – because half of it was gone, ripped straight away from the bone. The front of his uniform was coated with blood. Finally he collapsed, twitching and jerking.  
  
Miala stared goggle-eyed as something silver and incredibly fast shot out of the circle, twisting and slashing with razor-sharp claws. The – thing – carved through the gaggle like a hot knife through butter, crushing the Guards with terrifying ease.  
  
Suddenly, it stopped. A dead stop. Just like that. No forward movement at all. And it turned.  
  
Miala found herself staring into eyes dark as night, a liquid blackness... like pools of Dark Eco. Eyes that, though so horribly changed, clearly resembled Jak's. His tanned skinned had changed to silver, blonde hair to ghastly white, and the creature's lips were stretched in a fanged, but completely humorless smile.  
  
It... he had become a demon. The Eco-Freak she'd heard such stories about.  
  
The result of the failed 'Dark Warrior' project... and now the scourge of Haven City.  
  
Dark Jak.  
  
Frantically she started pounding on the door, as the thing that had once been Jak advanced, dark eyes shining with murderous intent.  
  
- ~ -  
  
Necralis: (is humming vaguely to 'Messij' on the Wipeout soundtrack)  
  
Vader: Necralis. NECRALIS!  
  
Necralis: Da da da-da da da da, da-da-da...  
  
Vader: (thinks for a second then inhales deeply) CL-  
  
Necralis: (hand shoots out and seizes Vader by the neck) Don't. Call. Me. That. (drops him on the ground)  
  
Vader: (gasping for breath) Well, I just thought you oughta know that we're ON!  
  
Necralis: Mm hmm? (continues to hum happily, tapping the rhythm out with one of her handguns)  
  
Vader: (pulls out her headphones and screeches in her face) WE'RE ON, YOU BLASTED AIRHEAD!  
  
Necralis: Really? (continues to hum to music she can't hear)  
  
Vader: Oh, forget it. She's lost in her own mind again. (puts the headphones back in) Well, as you can see, Chappie four is done and done. Please review! (loud screech as Necralis is jerked out of her fantasy world and into harsh reality)  
  
Necralis: Oh god no... (starts sobbing brokenly) I can't deal... (suddenly perks up as she gets used to it) Chappie 4-is up ready-to-voo... (realizes she is talking to the rhythm of the music she is listening to and rips out the headphones) Yeah. Hope you enjoyed it! It was so hard to write because I was struck down with a MASSIVE writer's block (THAT IS HAPPENING TOO FOIKING OFTEN!), however I still hope that you REVIEW and give me a reason to liiiiive! (Lets out a shriek of totally insane laughter) Wheeee! Or should I say... squee? ^^; 


	5. Chapter 5

When I Grow Up  
  
By Necralis and Vader  
  
- @ -  
  
Necralis: Ooh. Three reviews. How encouraging. But...I'll continue anyway, just because they were all GOOD reviews, which means some people like my fic. That's as good excuse as any. Thank you, people! Oh, and Kokono: It's so nice to see another Jhonen-slave. Huzzah for Zim and Nny!  
  
Vader: And...just curious, why were you quoting Vexx? Everyone knows what a horrible g-mph!  
  
Necralis: *with her hand over Vader's mouth* Don't talk to him about games. Microsoft's mind conditioning hasn't worn off yet. He still tries to advertise Blinx sometimes...  
  
Vader: *fighting out of Necralis's arms* Anyway, pertaining to her insanity, she's been like that ever since...well, ever. Psychologists speculate what caused it. No-one has ever figured it out, and the theories are getting wilder and wilder...  
  
Necralis: The ones involving jam were yummy.  
  
Vader: ...so uh...please do not compliment her. You'll encourage her. You don't want to encourage her to do anything, except write this story.  
  
Necralis: Which means you VOO! This here chapter delves into Miala's head a bit more than we have been... I mean, what motivated her to want to capture Jak so badly? Also, if everything goes as planned, this should be the escaping-from-the-mine chapter, so uh...we can progress a little more. Enjoy!  
  
**DISCLAIMER** *sigh* one of these days I WILL own Naughty Dog, and the rest of this world too, and then I will give you people the right to cancel out these damn things in return for unquestioning obedience. But until then, I still have to say it: I don't own anything about Jak II, not the characters, not the story, not the locations. Just Miala. Oh, AND the techie, except for his looks. I'll explain that someday... Things in /these/ marks are flash backs, ok?  
  
Plot belongs to me. Steal it and expect to be hung from a ceiling fan by your vital bits or hit with a whopping great lawsuit. Or just shouted at. I get to pick. Comprendè?  
  
- ~ -  
  
Chapter 5  
  
Dark Jak laughed softly as he strolled almost lazily towards her. It sounded like fingernails on slate. Miala clawed madly at the door, her heart fluttering like a bird's, adrenaline saturating her system to the point where all thought flew in the face of terror, and she launched herself sideways in response to instinct just as his claws rammed through the blank metal where she had been a second earlier.  
  
That turned out to be a godsend...Jak had jammed his claws in there so hard, he was now stuck. Leaving him pulling madly, snarling in fury as he watched her get away, she ran, slipping and skidding on the blood-slick floor, trying hard not to glance at the...bits of the Guards who had tried to go against her pursuer. She vaulted over a conveyer belt and scrambled up a ladder as with a noise like a dagger unsheathing Dark Jak ripped his claws out of their niche in the door and came ravening after her... her boots pounded on the metal catwalk as her eyes darted wildly, searching...searching for an escape route...no matter where it led...  
  
Like the answer to a prayer, she spotted a smallish metal grate about a meter up the wall. Facilities needed people, and people needed air, and for air you needed vents, a common flaw in security. If she was fast enough, she might just be able to get inside before her demonic former comrade ripped her to shreds...  
  
He was gaining...drawing her Pinger, she fired three quick shots on the run. The grate bent, crumpled, then disintegrated completely – one quick escape, ready for use.  
  
One truly incredible fear assisted feat of acrobatics later, she had pulled herself into the space, noting with utter joy that the hole wasn't wide enough for him to get through. Miala was about to slump against the wall of the vent in relief when a pale, clawed hand shot into the hole and fell just short of her foot, gouging scores in the metal. That drove her straight up the notches in the wall and into the system proper, until she felt she was far enough away to relax.  
  
"Shit..." she muttered, leaning against the wall until her heart rate returned to a speed where she could tell the individual beats apart.  
  
'I'll never, EVER dispute a bar story again,' she thought to herself.  
  
The adrenaline was gone now, leaving her drained, empty...tired. She let herself slump forward, too hollow to resist. As her head dropped onto her chest, she let her mind drift back to another frantic time, another twist of loyalty, another narrow escape.  
  
Another betrayal of trust.  
  
Her lips unconsciously formed the word "Daddy..." as she stared at the feather tattoos on her hands, the intricate design shifting before her eyes.  
  
And suddenly she felt much younger.  
  
- * -  
  
/Home.  
  
It had once been home.  
  
Not any more though, not with her parents gone. It still looked exactly the same of course – a rather cramped looking apartment set apart from the hundreds of other identical apartments by a number and a feeling. That was it.  
  
But now the feeling was gone.  
  
"We'll have to stay here, Mia," the dark-haired man standing beside her stated.  
  
She turned to stare at him. His face, familiar as the sun itself, bore a startling resemblance to her own – clearly showing they were brother and sister.  
  
"But...with Mum and Dad..."  
  
"We have to stay here," he repeated, flicking through a set of card keys with his fingers. Fingers tattooed with a lizard scale pattern the same way she had the feathers of a bird. "We got nowhere else to go, and anyway, I can't afford the rates on a hotel."  
  
She tried to smile at the feeble joke, but found her eyes watering instead. Their father and mother had both died defending the city against the Metal Heads more than a month ago, but it still hurt. It hurt so badly she wanted to scream. To scream and scream and never stop, so that she wouldn't have to face living with the huge hole inside herself they had left behind.  
  
Her throat tightened. Hot tears started to run down her cheeks.  
  
"Hey, hey sis. Don't cry. I hate it when you cry." Her brother held her face in his hands and made her face him. "I miss them too. But you have to hold on, ok? You'll see them again. And I'm still here, right?"  
  
"You're not them..." she said thickly.  
  
"Oh, now that's not fair. Here, have a tissue. Your nose is running." He smiled. "See?" He struck a pose. "Matriarch and patriarch all in one!" He sobered. "Look, Mia, I can't say it doesn't hurt. Damn, it hurts me too. But you can't give up, ok? You gotta keep living. Promise?"  
  
Miala blew her nose. "Yeah...I promise. Do you promise too?"  
  
He hugged her. "That's right, Mia, I'll keep on trucking. Just like you, eh?"  
  
She managed to smile. "Just like you."  
  
"We'll take down those Metal Heads! You and me, right?"  
  
"Right..."  
  
"That's the spirit! Us two together! Make Mum and Dad proud, right?"  
  
Make them proud...  
  
He had no idea how much it meant to her. Or maybe he did...and that was why he said it. Whatever the reason, those words started to repeat themselves inside her head. /  
  
Gotta make them proud...  
  
/There was a whirl of colours and suddenly it was a few months later and she was watching her brother get dragged into a Hell Cat Cruiser. He was not yelling or begging like some of the other crooks. He stood up straight with all the dignity he could muster, though he did stretch to flipping the bird to the guard that was leading him before being shoved roughly into the Cruiser.  
  
She remembered a shorter, chubbier, angry teenage girl running up to the Guards and shrieking that he was innocent; she had seen what had happened, he'd been trying to persuade them against trying to rip off the weapons. But they ignored her, one of the Guards dragging her aside and delivering a firm whack with the butt of his gun that left her sprawled and senseless on the ground.  
  
She scrambled to her feet, just in time to watch the Cruiser rev away in a cloud of dust, succeeding in catching a final glimpse of her brother – mouthing 'Keep on trucking' through the back window before he was yanked backwards by the collar and the Cruiser vanished around the corner, leaving the girl alone with her tears./  
  
Then there was final dream – nightmare - the one she always dreaded, the one she tried desperately to wake herself up from but never ever succeeding.  
  
/She had come home from work – the freakishly tedious fruit picking she hated, but needed to survive – to find her old home surrounded by Guards, marking it out in red-striped tape.  
  
She remembered demanding to know what the hell was going on, and she remembered the commanding officer – A man with spiky orange hair dressed in a racing suit, with an insectoid mask pulled back from his face, oozing authority and contempt – telling her to vacate the area, that this place was condemned due to the suspected presence of Underground rebels.  
  
She remembered telling him exactly what she thought of this, and being hit across the face for it.  
  
"What that MEANS, you little filth, is you stay the hell out of my way and go back to drinking or crying or whatever it is you little girls do."  
  
She might well have attempted to strangle him right there if, right at that moment, the first explosion had not occurred, a ball of orange fire blossoming out of her home and shattering the windows. Seconds later, she could do nothing but watch as a second gout of flame reduced the apartment to nothing but rubble, destroying all she had left of her life, her possessions... her family.  
  
The Guards watched passively, some even whistling at the impressiveness of the explosion, then packed up and left her kneeling, head bowed, on the cracked pavement of Haven City, unable to do anything but watch the remaining fires smolder until they were nothing but smoke and the last streaks of bloody sunlight had faded from the sky./  
  
You didn't make them proud, useless little filth...  
  
You have to...  
  
Can't nap on duty, daddy...  
  
Proud...  
  
"SHIT!" she yelled as she tried to throw herself upright, succeeding only in bashing her skull against the top of the vent. For a second the world spun then she remembered where she was and rolled over onto her stomach.  
  
Always those words, those dreams, whenever she was tired or sad. Going around and around inside her head. Reminding her of the brother she missed. And her parents. Mocking her failures.  
  
Failing to save her parents. Failing to prevent the arrest of her brother. Failing to even get to the bottom of Metal Head attack. Failing to save the last remnant of her old life when the KG Commander Erol blew it sky-high.  
  
Failing, failing, failing. Damn was she tired of failing. And running. Cowardice had never been encouraged it her family.  
  
Always, she cried in those dreams, but not in real life. Not anymore. She'd wasted her tears on her parents and her brother, leaving only fury instead. She had known perfectly well that one girl against an entire police force were very, very long odds, so instead of trying to kill the Guards...she had decided to disgrace them, by catching a guy they'd been chasing for months.  
  
Make them proud...  
  
"Might as well see where this leads..." she muttered to herself, trying to get that phrase and the memories of fire out of her head. She pulled herself forward on her elbows, trying to ignore the headache pounding between her temples.  
  
It took around five minutes of crawling and another three of climbing before she found the way out...another grate, surprisingly enough. She pushed it outwards, wincing as it clanged against the floor, then dropped catlike to the floor outside the vent and surveyed the room she found herself in.  
  
Computer flashed and dweeped from every wall...large surveillance screens loomed from the panels, most showing Jak beating the living hell out of the remaining guards. The place had more buttons than an airplane control panel, including a rather large red button. Miala had to fight the urge to press it.  
  
"Cool..." here she would be able to pull up the blueprints of this place, hopefully showing how to successfully blow the crap out of this god- forsaken facility. She raced up to the nearest computer, pressed a few keys, and within seconds was facing a password screen.  
  
Her shoulders slumped.  
  
"Shit," she growled. Miala was no hacker. Neither was Jak, if the stealth thing was anything to go by. She couldn't think of anyone capable of hacking this who was close at hand. All the KG in the mine were being pounded into the ground outside, anyway they probably wouldn't have the clearance for this thing. It was the way the Baron worked – don't tell the mugs anything.  
  
As she wavered uncertainly in front of the computer, her long, pointed ears picked up a frightened whimper behind her. She whirled in time to snag the jacket of the skinny man who'd been attempting an escape through the door. Dragging him around, she grabbed the front of his jacket and hefted him into the air, scowling into his face.  
  
He faced her, glasses askew, gabbling in fear. Miala looked him up and down. Skinny, glasses, no armor, one gun. He was no KG - he had to be the foreman of this thing...the head honcho...that meant high-level security clearance. The green haired girl again drew her weapon, cocking it at point blank range.  
  
He eyed it fearfully. "How...how did you get in? I locked it down..."  
  
She smirked. "Funny thing about security, you know. Building big doors half a mile thick. All very impressive looking, but you gotta remember that people can fit through smaller spaces than you'd think." She jerked her head towards the open vent.  
  
"I won't co-operate," he said bluntly.  
  
"How do you know that, Poindexter?" Miala said sardonically, trying to pretend she knew what she was doing.  
  
"You can't get into it...you need me to enter the password..." He said, eyes darting around for some method of escape. It was kind of funny, watching him gabble.  
  
Miala raised an eyebrow. "Pretty damn brave of you, standing up to an intruder without a gun," she pointed out.  
  
The red headed man snarled, whisking his blaster out of the holster. "I wouldn't say that!"  
  
She grabbed his wrist and squeezed it until the blaster fell out of his nerveless fingers. "Really?" she replied calmly, picking it up and tucking it into her pouch. "I would. Although you're right. I do need you. Briefly."  
  
His hands fell to his sides. A shrewd look appeared in his eyes. Could he turn the situation to his advantage?  
  
"Oh, don't look so hopeful, Poindexter. I am not in the mood for haggling. Here's the deal. You hack that there console-" Miala nodded towards the screen showing the 'Enter Password' panel – "And I don't ventilate your skull."  
  
"And what makes you think I won't just call in reinforcements?" he said shrewdly...and rather foolishly.  
  
"You see those screens, tech-man?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"You see that white-looking guy ripping up your troops?"  
  
Again he nodded, sweat beading his brow.  
  
The girl gave him a wolfish smile. "Guess what happened to the last guy who called in reinforcements."  
  
He swallowed, his mind racing around and getting nowhere.  
  
"So..." said Miala, gesturing expansively with her gun. "Do we have a deal?" Inside, her mind was yelling. 'Do you think threatening some idiot techie's going to make your heart stop hurting? Do you think that this mission is going to redeem you? You think that Eco-Freak is going to help you? You're a fool! A weak, cowardly, naïve little fool...' She shook her head and forced it to the back of her mind. Jak promised. He had promised...  
  
"We ...have a deal," the techie muttered, looking surly.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"I said I'll do it!" He pulled angrily against the grip she had on his jacket. "I need to get to the console."  
  
"Sure thing, Poindexter." She let go of his jacket and shoved him towards the computer. "But do please be quick. I need the blueprints of this fucking place, a plan, a map. Anything like that. And any funny stuff..." she didn't finish the sentence, but the coldness in her silver eyes was eloquent enough.  
  
The techie gave her one last glance, filled with distilled hatred. Then he started typing at the keyboard.  
  
- * -  
  
When Jak came to himself, he was surrounded. By corpses. Lots of them. Wincing, he pulled himself upright, trying not to look at the man right next to him who'd had his mask bashed off, his face savaged beyond all recognition.  
  
This Dark Jak rampage was bad. This one would give him nightmares - next time he actually got the chance to sleep. Not a good thing. Not when Praxis had labeled you as a Public Enemy. Jak felt like he should feel some sense of victory. After all, he hated the Guards more than anything else in the world. But instead of some dark satisfaction, all he felt was exhaustion.  
  
True...they were KG. As stupid and hypocritical as the Baron they served. But not all of them were bastards...Ashlin and Torn (sorta...) were cases in point.  
  
But until he got his hands on Praxis, they were the only things on which he could vent his rage. After he'd done that...well, then he would forgive them for their idiocy. He might even apologize for decimating their ranks so severely that the Baron had started drafting anyone who protested.  
  
But first he would get his own revenge...everything else was just an afterthought.  
  
Getting slowly to his feet, he winced slightly at how drained he felt. Always, after he went Dark Jak, he would feel exhausted for hours afterwards...it seemed to suck away his last reserves of energy.  
  
"Oh, shit, where's that crazy girl got to?" he said suddenly, looking around the aftermath. The last time he'd seen Miala, she'd been looking at him with concern. He completely lost self-awareness in his dark form...suppose he'd killed her?  
  
Damn it, he'd never had trouble like this with Daxter – the ottsel had never had to run away in the middle of a fire-fight, being relatively safe on his companion's shoulder. Having a partner who could move separately brought on a whole new list of problems and consequences – such as losing them in a fight.  
  
Frantically he searched among the smoking, mangled bodies of the Guard. It was stomach-churning work, but he could deal...he seen (and done) much worse in his time. She wasn't there. That meant she'd been smart enough to run...which was a relief, he supposed. Although she probably wouldn't want anything to do with him now. People feared monsters.  
  
"Hey, girl! Miala!" he called, wondering if she had not simply deserted him in the middle of this facility. He sincerely hoped she wasn't that cowardly.  
  
His eyes traveled across the walls, searching for some clue, a door, a window, something. The entrance they'd used was as solidly shut as ever... however, there were footprints. A trail of red footprints, running from the door to a ladder. Climbing it led him to a thin bridge across the chamber, then to a tiny vent in the wall. The hatch had been blown off, and there were deep claw marks in the vent itself...  
  
Well, now he knew where she'd gone. For all the good it did him. He couldn't follow her, as he was surprised that someone with even her slim build could get in there – he certainly didn't have a chance. He didn't even know where the vent led.  
  
Suddenly it hit him and he whacked himself in the head in frustration at his own slow wits. The communicator. He had forgotten all about the communicator.  
  
He pulled out the tiny com and, after a second's muttering numbers, tuned it to Miala's frequency, hit 'call' and waited.  
  
The thing crackled for a second, then Miala's voice came over the line, broken by static and sounding annoyed.  
  
"Girl in Green here."  
  
'Good grief.' "You can stop with the fucking codenames, Miala, you know who I am."  
  
"Mar's Ass, haven't you ever heard of a little something called 'Style'?"  
  
Jak shook his head; hardly able to believe he had actually WORRIED about this girl for even a second. "No, and I couldn't care less. Where the hell are you?"  
  
There was a pause.  
  
"Miala? Still talking?"  
  
"I'm trying to decide whether I should tell you." Abruptly her voice changed, losing her joking tone, sounding icy cold, maybe even a little afraid. "After all, I don't want some crazed Eco-Freak ripping me apart."  
  
"Son of a-!" Jak exclaimed, glaring at the radio. What had he done to deserve being saddled with her? "Shit, I should have seen this coming."  
  
"I don't CARE what you should have SEEN, I want to know what you should have TOLD ME. You know, little things like the fact that you can turn into some weird thing that tried to KILL ME and can't be shot, restrained or controlled?" Her tone was sarcastic, angry – obviously she had had quite a run in with his demonic alter ego.  
  
Jak took a deep breath, paced back and forth a few steps, wondering how to explain it. "Ok," he began, "You remember when I told you that Praxis arrested me and did some weird Dark Eco experiments?"  
  
The com was silent for a second. "Yeah, now that you mention it. Did that have something to do with it?"  
  
"That had everything to do with it. He'd been doing that to a whole bunch of prisoners before me, only I was the only one to survive it."  
  
He didn't explain why that was. He didn't know himself. No one did.  
  
"I didn't even know about it until I...changed...for the first time. What you saw...that was me...only I can't think or anything when I'm like that. Sometimes it feels like another mind inside mine, only it sort of...wakes up whenever I'm angry, or tired. So I change."  
  
There was silence for a long time.  
  
"That's pretty damn bizarre," Miala said unnecessarily.  
  
"Yeah. I hate it."  
  
"But can you control it?"  
  
Jak hesitated before answering. "No. I can't. But I've run out of charge now, so I guess I'll be safe for a while. Until I find some more Eco."  
  
"So...I guess I can tell you where I am? Without having to worry about...the thingy?"  
  
Jak felt a faint ripple of anger. Did she think he was some kind of rabid monster? "We call it Dark Jak. Yeah, I'm safe. Unless you're afraid I'll shoot you when I find you because you think I'm still trying to kill you."  
  
He could almost hear her wince. "Ok, I deserved that. Sorry. I'm in the Techie Box. With," she added proudly (and evilly), "the techie."  
  
Jak could feel a crooked smile curving up his face. "He co-operative?"  
  
"Oh yes." She finally sounded like she had forgotten about Dark Jak. "Very obliging. In fact he's getting the blue prints right now. ISN'T he?" she added, obviously to the techie.  
  
"Yes," she said happily to Jak. "He's being co-operative."  
  
"Cool. I'll be up there in a sec, just gotta figure out how to get there. Oh, and Miala..."  
  
"Sure thing. See you in while. Girl in Green, out." The com clicked loudly.  
  
"Nice work," Jak muttered too late.  
  
- * -  
  
"Five minutes, Poindexter," Miala said to the techie, as she slid her com into her pouch. "Hurry it up."  
  
He shot her a dangerous look before tapping a few more keys, standing back and saying, "There, it's done, this is the map of this facility and the blueprints. Can I go now?"  
  
Se didn't bother answering him, crossing the room to glare at the screen, keeping her gun trained on the man in case he got any ideas.  
  
The map was a matrix of green lines on black, outlining the structure of the mine and a fair chunk of the ground it was built on. As she'd thought, it was dug deep into the forest floor, allowing them to hollow out as much as they liked without worrying about running out of space.  
  
She switched to the blueprints, noting with a demonic smile the structure of the place – it had one large pillar in the middle for support. Take out that pillar, and the whole thing would collapse under its own weight. Of course, it was solid titanium...you would need something really, REALLY powerful to take it apart...  
  
"Damn it, Miala, I leave you alone for half an hour and already you're holding someone else at gunpoint," someone said behind her. She turned.  
  
"Hey," Jak said, leaning against the doorframe. Miala stared incredulously for a second.  
  
"How did you...? I thought that door was supposed to be locked," the techie said, suddenly forgetting that there was a gun barrel inches from his face.  
  
"You shut up," Jak said to him. "What's that? The blueprints?" he elbowed Miala aside, ignoring her cry of "Hey!".  
  
"Okay...fairly standard set up...nothing I can't take apart..."  
  
"Uh...with what, exactly? Those bombs you had..."  
  
"Pleco bombs. Short for Plasmite and Eco. The most...second most powerful bomb in the world. I got two of 'em." Jak said with a twisted grin.  
  
"BOMBS?!? You want to blow this place UP?!?" the techie screeched, suddenly cottoning on. "You can't do that! What abo-" abruptly he was silenced by the barrel of Jak's blaster.  
  
"We need to get to the bottom of this place, quickly. I'm sick of it already. I'll set the bombs – I know how to do it – and you..." Jak frowned at Miala. "You make sure someone doesn't decide to blast my butt."  
  
"What'll we do with this wuss?" Miala said, jerking her head in the direction of the techie.  
  
Jak looked him up and down, coolly assessing him with his hard blue eyes. "Leave him. But if he wants to try anything, we might have to tie him up first."  
  
The techie got the hint.  
  
Miala smiled brightly. "Let's make things go boom now."  
  
Jak groaned. "Sweet Mar, your lines are worse than Daxter's."  
  
- * -  
  
Jak gave the cylinder in his hands a sharp twist. It popped open with a 'scer-chink' noise, revealing the timer, the setting controls and a button marked, very clearly, 'ARM'. There was no disarming button. Krew liked things done right the first time.  
  
"How much time?" Miala asked as she scanned the chamber.  
  
"I'm thinking...five minutes," Jak said, keying it in. "And please don't distract me, unless you want to end up with five seconds instead."  
  
She apologized and shut up. Jak twisted the other bomb open and set it in place next to the first, ready for calibration. He keyed in 5:00 and pressed the 'set' button.  
  
The display flickered. Then it lit up with the numbers:  
  
1:00  
  
Jak frowned. It must be faulty. He pressed 'reset' and entered in 5:00.  
  
Again it lit up: 1:00.  
  
Now that was strange. Krew's bombs were the best in Haven – they were not supposed to fail more than once. He reset it and entered in five minutes a third time.  
  
This time, instead of just showing the numbers, the bomb emitted a loud and insistent beep. And the display lit up with the numbers...then started flicking backwards.  
  
1:00  
  
0:59  
  
0:58  
  
Oh shit.  
  
The bomb had armed itself. And there was no disarm.  
  
Krew. He had set Jak up. He had long suspected the weapons dealer had been trying to kill him quietly...  
  
'Well, Jak, now you got proof,' his brain said snidely.  
  
Oh SHIT...  
  
"Miala..."  
  
"Yeah, blondey?"  
  
0:55  
  
0:54  
  
0:53  
  
"This thing was locked. At one minute. And now it's armed itself."  
  
There was a very brief silence, broken only by the bomb's beeping.  
  
Jak decided that standing about was not the smartest thing in the world. Pausing only to grab the frozen Miala's arm (she'd been staring at the bombs with almost comical disbelief) he dragged her towards the door, blasting the lock instead of trying to hack it.  
  
Amazingly, it actually opened – the techie might have unlocked on his way out – and Miala and Jak pounded down the steel corridor, all too aware that the bomb's beeping was getting faster...  
  
0:46  
  
0:45  
  
0:44  
  
The second door was closed. Jak lifted his gun, fired at the lock then swore very loudly as the bullet rebounded off its armor and pinged around the walls.  
  
Miala ran forward and started trying to unscrew the panel, fumbling in her panic. As it clanged to the floor, Jak glanced back the way they had come, urging her on with his mind while keeping track of the precious passing seconds.  
  
0:31  
  
0:30  
  
0:29  
  
Connecting and disconnecting sparking wires, Miala yelped as a spark of Eco* zapped her hand, then kicked it viciously. She gasped in utter astonishment as the door opened wide...no time for speculation...the duo leapt through the door and continued the race against time.  
  
0:23  
  
0:22  
  
0:21  
  
A few meters away from the entrance and Miala tripped and fell...Jak didn't hesitate, but grabbed her hand and almost dragged her after him. They squeezed through the gap in the door and raced up the steep slope...  
  
0:11  
  
0:10  
  
0:09  
  
They had to be far away. There was no knowing how big the blast would be. The other bomb had only had a few grams...and the radius for that one had been huge...  
  
0:02  
  
0:01  
  
0:00  
  
And then the bombs went off.  
  
BOOOOMKEERRRAAASH!  
  
A huge ball of orange flame blew out of the top of the mine. Flames were scattered for hundreds of feet, curling up tree trunks and racing across grassy clearings.  
  
The entire facility imploded, its supports gone, every single pillar blowing out in an instant. It simply collapsed like a house of cards, each level crashing through the one below it, destroying a third in turn.  
  
The debris was scattered for kilometers.  
  
Jak collapsed thankfully on the ground.  
  
"Well," he croaked. "That was-"  
  
And then the SECOND explosion went off.  
  
A spectacular sphere of white-hot brilliance bloomed, incinerating the entire mine in an instant, the metal snapping and popping and expanding within milliseconds. Tendrils of white snaked through the grass, sizzling, then shrinking away to leave ugly brown scars against the green.  
  
A second huge ball of white bloomed – this one larger than a football field, completely engulfing the tendrils and the little remaining debris.  
  
To say that the sound was ear splitting was an understatement. It was monstrous.  
  
The dazzling onslaught continued for only seconds – but it seemed like an eternity – then the brilliance died down, leaving a crater like a chasm in the ground.  
  
The silence was deafening after the noise.  
  
There was only one phrase you could use to describe a sight like that. And Miala used it.  
  
"Sweet Precursors."  
  
- ~ -  
  
Necralis: And THAT finally concludes the Mine Saga that was only meant to take up one chapter. Instead it took up two – one of them the longest I have ever written.  
  
Vader: She can't adhere to her own limits. Useless.  
  
Necralis: *collapses face down* Now THAT chapter took it out of me. It carries elements from many things, such as Douglas Adams' works and Matthew Reilly's action brilliance, particularly in the explosions. I love them – they sometimes help me structure my writing better.  
  
Vader: *screeches* THEIF! PLAGIRIST!  
  
Necralis: *panicky* No, no, I'm not! They just inspire me! I was gonna have an explosion LONG before I read 'Contest'! It just helped me describe it! *wails* Oh my head. I've being at my computer for ALMOST MY WHOLE DAY! I hope you people are happy!  
  
Vader: See! *points* She is WEAK! Rise up and vanquish her!  
  
Necralis: No, no, just review. I don't want to be vanquished today – it just wouldn't be a battle. Not when I have a headache.  
  
Vader: Yeah... I guess. Well, That leaves it up to you people to review, please, and restore her to her former craziness. Then she will update.  
  
Necralis: Yeah. What he said. Now I must bid you sayonara... Have fun reviewing...  
  
* Now, my loyal readers, time for some explanations. The first, pertaining to swearwords. I have noticed that when phrases like 'Thank God' and 'Oh my God' need to be used, they are instead replaced with things like 'Thank Mar' and 'By the Precursors'. This actually makes sense, since they are from an entirely different world, so they wouldn't believe in God – the Precursors and Mar are the closest they get. So, I invented a few of my own swearwords, including 'Mar's Arse' (I'm weird, shoot me:P), 'Sweet Precursors' although I think that one's been used, and 'Sweet Mar'. They make sense in the context.  
  
Vader: *cutting in* And since she's too incompetent to even tie her shoes, I'll do the next one. Well, as you know, Eco is the source of power in Jak's world, so she invented the idea that Jak's 'channeling' abilities might be like being able to stream electricity through your body without getting hurt. So, anyone who touches Blue Eco without hose abilities will get a nasty shock – like touching a bare wire. This also appears in 'Darkened Paths', so yeah – here it is, finally explained.  
  
Necralis: Ciao... 


	6. Chapter 6

When I Grow Up  
  
By Necralis  
  
- -  
  
Necralis: Well, my peeps, welcome to a new chapter, courtesy of all your...kind reviews. hugs all I'm so glad you like it. Here is your fix! This contains...a rather major event, but it's really short. I guess you have my longest one, and now you have my...second shortest. Yay.  
  
Vader: I can't believe people actually LIKED this. You're all mad. Mad I say!  
  
DISCLAIMER If I owned the Jak and Daxter license, it probably would have failed, since I'm just some lowlife teenager without a job who hasn't even finished school yet. I only own she who is known as Miala, and all the various original plot nuances, gadgets, pedestrians and so forth in this fiction. Don't steal anything or...well...holds up a large scythe Eloquent enough?  
  
- -  
  
The first sun rose into the sky above Haven forest, blazing orange light filtering through the trees to play across the eyelids of the blonde man who was fast asleep near the remains of a campfire. The second, green star wouldn't come up for some hours yet, but it was already staining the eastern sky a strange shade of yellow.  
  
Jak rolled over and batted irritably at the sunlight, but it had already woken him. He got up, stretched his muscles (which were aching from spending the night on the forest floor) and squinted nervously at the now defunct Gate-Lock that led to the smoking remains of a mine, a facility he had blown the smithereens with the help of the girl who was drooling some meters away.  
  
In sleep, Miala looked younger – it was much easier to see that she was only seventeen – as the premature lines of sadness and anger were smoothed away. Even the healing Metal Head scars looked shallower. The intense silver of her eyes was not visible, and for once she was not smiling sardonically.  
  
'Sleep makes everyone look better,' Jak reflected. 'Except maybe Krew.' NOTHING could make that particular lard-pile look better.  
  
As he was trying to decide whether it would be safe to wake her up without risking some parts of him he might want to keep, he spied something odd that was resting a few feet away from her hands. She must have been holding it when she fell asleep. Glancing suspiciously at the green-haired girl, he picked it up and looked it over curiously.  
  
Some called these particular gadgets Xel-cels, or Pixel-cels, simple holograms projected onto a small rectangle of precursor metal. Generally they were used to keep snapshots of times, or people as was in this case. This particular one showed four people, two adults and two children, and after staring at it for a few seconds, Jak realized it must be Miala's family.  
  
The man and the woman – he broad-shouldered and grinning a grin that nearly hid his dark, beady eyes, she more wispy and smiling nervously – had their arms around each other – he figured they must be her parents. Her father bore the familiar intricate Krimzon Guard tattoos, spider-webbed across his face like a set of burn scars.  
  
He had his hand resting on the shoulder of a teenage boy, dark haired, with his father's broad grin and his mother's glittering silver eyes. Her brother. Jak wondered how long it was before he was arrested.  
  
The final occupant of the picture was a chubby young girl, grinning like a lunatic and holding up hands that were covered from elbow downwards in mud. Said mud was also smeared on her face, shoes, hair and clothes.  
  
Jak looked at the real Miala. She didn't look much better, having been slightly singed in the explosion.  
  
Quietly he put the picture down next to her hands. Maybe she looked at it every night before she slept. Maybe it helped comfort her.  
  
More than likely it just made her angrier. That photo was probably all she had left of the family KG Commander Erol had inadvertently ripped apart.  
  
"I'll just have the coffee thanks..." Miala mumbled, then without warning snapped completely awake and glared bleary eyed at a startled Jak.  
  
"What are you staring at, Blondey?"  
  
Jak sighed inwardly. 'Never mind...'  
  
- -  
  
Haven City was infested.  
  
Before you start conjuring up images of insects or fungus, let me clarify.  
  
It was infested with life. With ordinary people, authority-fearing, hardworking Joe's. With low-life's, mercenaries, hookers, morons, assassins, the rich (few of these) and the destitute. With insects, as the shield wall wasn't enough to keep out the all the bloodsuckers in the world. And with Krimzon Guards, marching around muttering about the lack of action or arresting people seemingly at random.  
  
The one thing Haven didn't have an abundance of was fauna. Animals were worth too much on the black market to have wandering about on the streets.  
  
All this life was crammed together in an over-crowded, under-maintained hellhole, polluted beyond all belief by the incredible array of Zoomers and Cruisers flying left and right. The overall effect was one of a nest full of brightly coloured ants.  
  
It was one of these flying machines that Jak now piloted, dipping and weaving through the traffic with the ease borne of long practice.  
  
The cool air on his face, the sun shining on his back, the brisk wind ruffling in his hair – all this might have been pleasant if not for the girl clinging to the Zoomer behind him.  
  
Miala screamed loudly in Jak's ear as they rounded a corner, very nearly flipping her out of the Zoomer into the street. Wincing in pain, Jak accelerated just a little bit more than was strictly necessary, nearly slamming into a Hell-Cat Cruiser before switching Hover-zones at the last minute.  
  
People around them were starting to give them funny looks – partly because of Jak's overly reckless driving and partly because Miala screamed at every turn.  
  
"I take you don't ride in Zoomers very much," Jak said, veering to avoid a three-seater with garish paint who's driver beeped and gave them a rude gesture.  
  
"Not with lunatics behind the wheel... no." she croaked. Her grip was cutting off the circulation of Jak's arm. "You're not on the race track, dammit!" She then yelped as they came to a heart-shattering stop behind a tiny bike. "You're just doing that to freak me out, aren't you?"  
  
Jak smirked. "Maybe."  
  
"Where are we going, anyhow?"  
  
Jak twitched the steering, only just managing to avoid hitting a Guard (more out of caution than goodwill). "We're gonna do two things. One, pick up my pay."  
  
"Paid? You were getting _paid_. And I'm not getting a cent, is that right?"  
  
"Damn right. And two, pick up some...thing."  
  
"Equipment?"  
  
Jak grinned, wondering idly whether or not Daxter would ever try to hit on her. "You could say that."  
  
- -  
  
Jak parked the Zoomer outside the Hip Hog and waited for the trembling girl to relinquish her death grip on his arms. As she got off, he grabbed her arm, pulled her closer and said, "Listen, you wanna be careful in here. Someone like you could bring in a lot of money, and some people in there WOULD be willing to sell you. Stick close, right?"  
  
Miala simply grinned evilly.  
  
As he pushed his way into the Hip Hog Heaven Saloon, dragging a protesting Miala behind him, Jak realized straight off that something weird was going on. For one thing, it was even more over-crowded then usual, and for another, there was a surprisingly large amount of people clustered around the bar at the other end.  
  
As he strolled past the usual collection of drunkards, lowlifes and idiots, he tapped a guy he knew on the shoulder just as a storm of clapping and stamping broke out from the crowd, and asked, "What's going on?"  
  
The man was named Jinx, one of Krew's 'boys' (read: Hired Goons), and he looked contented, happy, and obviously very drunk.  
  
"Hey there, Pretty Boy. 'S not usually crowded as this..." when he was drunk, Jinx had a tendency to state the blindingly obvious. His eyes wandered blearily up to Miala. "Didn't know you had a girlfriend..." he slurred, then brayed with derisive laughter.  
  
"Oh for Pete's sake..." Jak pushed the drunken demolition expert forwards into his drink, then made his way up to the front. Then he saw something that made him almost collapse in relief. Sig was sitting near the front and he looked sober.  
  
"Hey there, rookie." The black elf grinned at him, then like Jinx, his eyes fell on Miala. "Whoa, there, Little Lady. Don't see many like you in the Hip Hog. Didja know that Jak here is taken?"  
  
Jak would have punched him but he didn't particularly feel like breaking his knuckles on the Wastelander's armor. "She's not my girlfriend, you bastard," he snarled, but that only made Sig's grin grow wider as he held up his hands.  
  
"Did I say anything about her being your girlfriend? Nu-uh," he said. The only reply he received was a snarl, which just made him laugh.  
  
"Ok, who the hell is this, why is he laughing at me, and what do you mean, 'taken'?" Miala queried, glancing from Sig to Jak as though begging for some coherent replies.  
  
"He's Jak, I'm Sig, and when I say 'taken' I mean that if Keira sees him with you, he can pretty much kiss his ass goodbye."  
  
"I, however - " he leaned closer to her and gave her what he clearly thought to be a winning smile – "have no such commitments, so if you wanna go out sometime-"  
  
"I'll add you to my list," Miala said seriously, miming writing in mid-air. "One – jackass – for dinner – sometime."  
  
"You wanna be more careful, Sig. It bites." Sig drew away and started grinning again.  
  
Jak grinned too, scanning the crowd as Miala flipped the bird to a sleazy- looking group of men who were hooting at her, then told them to do something you really shouldn't say in a PG-rated fiction.  
  
Suddenly he stopped. The people in front of him had moved apart for a moment, giving him a glimpse of what lay beyond.  
  
"Dear Mar..." he croaked.  
  
The people were watching an orange creature that was dancing up a storm on the bartop. Some moron had put on music, and Daxter was singing despite the fact that he only knew half the words. Tess was smiling adoringly at him. It was almost sad.  
  
"A friend of yours?" smirked Miala, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"Here's a tip, Miala. Shut the hell up." Jak shoved an unfortunate patron into the man next to him and kicked someone behind the knees. He then walked straight up to the drunken ottsel, picked him up and cuffed him around the head.  
  
"Wozza wha-? Jak!" Daxter's face lit up in a very hazy smile. His eyes then fell on Miala, who was staring incredulously at the talking animal. "What the - a girlfriend?!?" Jak started repeatedly hitting himself in the head. A sleazy smile spread across Daxter's face – one that Jak knew only too well. "Hey, chicky babe, I know this great little bar-"  
  
"We're in it, Daxter," Jak said in a deceptively calm voice. He then turned around and said to the people watching, "Show's over people. Dancing Daxter is now closed for business." When several people seemed slightly reluctant to leave, Jak got out his Vulcan, cocked it and said, "Show's over unless you want to be it." A risk in this enclosed space, but hey, Jak was in a hurry. Somehow no one doubted that he would shoot.  
  
As the crowd dispersed, Jak picked up Daxter again and deposited him on his shoulder. "I should have you stuffed."  
  
"I should have YOU stuffed, getting a girlfriend without consulting me..."  
  
"Hang on a sec." Jak walked outside and without hesitation dropped Daxter into the harbor.  
  
As the ottsel came up in a bedraggled, sputtering mess, Jak said, "We sober now?" The ottsel glared daggers at him.  
  
"I hate you."  
  
"Glad to hear it." In response, Daxter tried to fling a handful of water at him but missed, because Jak had turned away. "Didn't know you cared, you bastard!" Daxter shrieked. Miala was standing next to the door of the Hip Hog, giving death-glares to several sleazy-looking men who were grinning at her.  
  
"You have weird friends," she said, giving them the finger and turning to stare at Daxter.  
  
_Takes one to know one_. Out loud he said, "Daxter, this is Miala. Miala, this is Daxter the pea-brain."  
  
"Nice." Daxter glared at him.  
  
Miala blinked her silver eyes owlishly in surprise. "I must be losing it," she said to Jak. "For a second I thought that that thingy-"  
  
"Talked, yeah. He's an ottsel."  
  
"I am NOT an ottsel! I'm a man! I'm - dare I say it – DA man! I'm the coolest freaking-"  
  
"Idiot," Jak put in. "It's probably easier on you if you ignore him."  
  
"Bastard," Daxter muttered. He paused.  
  
Jak said, "Didja miss me?"  
  
"Does a toe miss a hang-nail?"  
  
Jak grinned at him. He knew Daxter too well to take it seriously. "I missed you too."  
  
Daxter dragged himself out of the water and shook himself dry, spattering Jak with droplets of filthy water. "Yeah right...OY! Jak! What's with the chick? And if you've finally decided t' ditch Keira, can I have her?"  
  
Jak swore inwardly and glared at Miala. He hoped Daxter wouldn't drive her crazier than she already was.  
  
"Met her in the forest."  
  
"Actually, I captured you, if I remember correctly," Miala said smugly.  
  
"CAPTURED?!? Geez, am I glad I didn't...I mean, geez, Jak, if I'D been there, I bet I could have sent her packing, eh? Or distracted her with my...wily charms." Daxter leapt onto Jak's shoulder like the pro he was and struck a pose he clearly thought was heroic.  
  
Jak decided to stop this conversation before Miala stopped being amused and shot the ottsel.  
  
"Hey, Dax, you remember how you broke into the Fortress?"  
  
"I got a memory like an elephant, baby!" the ottsel grinned, wiggling his fingers. "I'm telepathic..."  
  
"Could you lead US through there?"  
  
"Can Krew go through a hundred Glub Burgers in five seconds?"  
  
"I'll take that as a yes...Dax...we gotta rescue her brother."  
  
"I could take you through that hole faster than Sig blasts a...hang on, what? Her brother? Wait a minute! The Prison?"  
  
Miala nodded, still staring at Daxter with the faintest hint of disbelief in her eyes. "Your buddy here promised me he'd help."  
  
"WE are NOT going back to that damn prison!" Daxter announced with futility, glaring at Jak as though this were all his fault.  
  
"Yes we are."  
  
"What's in it for me, huh? HUH?"  
  
"Dax, I promised her. You know I don't like people who go back on their word," Jak said, trying to appeal to the ottsel's decency. Daxter may have been stupid, annoying, useless, loud-mouthed, arrogant and clumsy, but one thing he definitely was not was a liar. Despite his smart-ass comments, he was supposed to be a decent guy deep down – and he always kept his promises. Always.  
  
Daxter knew this, and thoroughly hated Jak for knowing it too.  
  
The ottsel shuffled his paws, ground his teeth, grumbled and griped, but finally gave in to his nagging conscience and muttered, "okay, okay...I'll show you the damn entrance."  
  
Miala's face radiated honest joy, and she actually gave Daxter a bone- crushing hug that left him looking slightly dazed.  
  
Of course it didn't take long for him to recover and start boasting that no female could resist his animal magnetism – but not before Jak said quietly, "I'm sorry about ditching you."  
  
And Daxter muttered, "I missed you too, Jak."  
  
Then he said, "Hey, I was the one who ditched YOU, big guy! I'm the brains of this outfit!"  
  
Jak almost smiled.  
  
It was good to have him back.  
  
- -  
  
Necralis: It's...so short...only nine pages? Gee, I guess that other writing streak didn't last long. Um. Ok. I hope you liked this, and I hope you REVIEW.  
  
Vader: Just a stupid transition chapter! Pfft.  
  
Necralis: angry Hey! I tried to put humour in it! And there's still two or three chapters to go to the...oh my god, we're getting so close to the end. Will it happen? Will I finally finish a fic?  
  
Vader: No.  
  
Necralis: SHUDDUP! kicks him Now. I thank all my loyal reviewers. hug You people keep me going. I would NEVER have gotten this far without you lot...hope you keep up your habits! And Kokono – Jhonen is a genius. I love his stuff. Zim and Nny...are...BRILLIANT! WHOO!  
  
Vader: Review so she'll stop working me so hard.  
  
This is kinda their equivalent of a photo. 


	7. Chapter 7

When I Grow Up

By Necralis

- -

Necralis: Well, my peeps, it's been a while, ain't it? Welcome to my new chappie. I hope you enjoy it! There was a slight crisis when I lost my inspiration, but it all came back and I feel all better now…so, I guess I should shut up and let you read! Also, honestly, Kiz. I'm surprised at you. I thought you knew me better than that. As if I would do an ending like that.

Vader: She isn't THAT stupid. Almost, but not quite.

Necralis: Actually, you're lucky you're getting an ending at all, since you two were the ONLY ones who bothered to review. Oh well. I am supposed to be doing this for myself. I'll continue…if JUST for you.

DISCLAIMER I own Miala, her family, the plot, various gadgets and the techie (except for his looks. Anyone figured that out yet?). I do not Jak and Daxter, nor the world they live in nor the enemies they fight. JUST my OC, whom I hope is not a Mary Sue. Onwards with the show!

Chapter 7

- -

It was cold – very cold, lying against the steel roof of the Fortress Prison. The metal felt like it was cutting into his cheek, and the tips of his ears were going numb.

He hauled himself up to a sitting position, cursing occasionally as condensed water dripped from his goggles into his eyes. It was raining – drizzling, more like – the soft curtain of water muffling all sound, even the occasional burst of gunfire from the direction of the Slums.

Jak saw grey. Lots and lots of grey. He couldn't understand how an incredibly polluted city, bordered by a desert and protected by an electrical field could have fog, until he drew breath and suddenly found himself doubled over in a coughing fit.

It wasn't fog. It was smoke. Choking, smothering, carbon monoxide mixed with an overabundance of moisture from one of the city's rare bouts of rain. Of course, it might have just been the altitude – he was standing on the roof of the Fortress Prison. While not overly high up, it was elevated enough to rise above the relatively clean air near the ground. Miala was not coughing, but she had lived in the city all her life – long enough for the pollution to have wrecked her hair and messed with her system, but she had gotten used to the smoke.

Daxter didn't seem to need to breathe. He was too busy talking.

A screech from the ottsel knocked Jak out of his thoughts. Daxter and Miala were on the other side of the roof, arguing loudly about what they should do when they got inside. Miala wanted them to try and be as quiet as possible, Daxter was all for going in guns blazing. The fact that he now actually _had _a gun probably helped – Miala had given him her old Pinger, keeping for herself the Blaster she had stolen from the techie.

It was now slung on her back, in a holster she claimed she had found 'just lying around' – finding things lying around usually meant they were stolen, if Krew was anything to go by. Jak found he didn't care. It seemed to distract her from paranoia.

Jak carefully hooked a speaker into his ear, clipping it to the leather band on his goggles.

"Are these really necessary?" he asked Miala. The girl cut off in the middle of an obscenity and glared at him.

"Do you want to get separated again? You just talk into these and I'll hear you – no lengthy screwing about with coms, see?" Miala said as she hooked one around her own ear. "Don't worry, my brother used them all the time when we played capture the flag-"

Jak held up one hand, silencing her reminiscence. "Ok, Ok, I get the point, we'll use them."

Daxter crossed his arms and pouted angrily. "How come I don't get one?"

"Because I don't like you," Miala said, coolly.

"I've heard that before…" Daxter muttered angrily.

"Funny, that," Jak kicked at the steel roof of the prison and listened to its hollow clunk. "How'd you get in last time, Dax?"

The ottsel sniffed primly and snuck his nose in the air. He didn't say anything. Jak sighed, picked up the ottsel and set him on his shoulder armor. "Don't you dare start that now, Dax. We need you."

"Me? But she started it!" After glaring at Miala for a few seconds, Daxter leapt off Jak's shoulder and scampered the edge of the building. "Down there," he announced, pointing over the edge. "There's this little ledge and that leads to a vent…"

Miala wasn't listening. She was staring into the fog, her thoughts a million miles away…

"I'm coming. Keeping on, just like you said."

Jak, meanwhile, was wincing. "More vents." He shuddered. He hated small spaces.

"Yeah, more vents, you weenie. Don't worry though, after that we get to this weird little landing and there's a cover-"

Daxter stopped talking because Miala had glanced over the edge for a split second then simply walked off the side. A clatter of boots announced her landing on the ledge, after which she yanked away the vent cover and crawled in.

"Women," muttered Daxter, though he did not seem very upset. "No patience."

--

It was also cold in the Prison, but it was a grimy, dank sort of cold…there had not been any cleaners for two decades because of the risk that they could turn traitor, so for a while the work had been done by simple, automated robots, until they too were found to be too risky. Occasionally an unlucky KG was assigned to clean the Fortress as punishment duty. But mostly it just festered, becoming ever darker and dirtier, adding to the hell that the inmates were forced to endure. The lucky ones that did not get taken away for the Baron's 'humanitarian research'.

It was all steel, steel and wires and unseen energy humming behind the walls. Corridors all seemed to blur into one another, the only sight of other life – apart from the rats – being the occasional patrol or wild-eyed prisoner. The featureless walls were broken by equally featureless doors, which led into identical rooms, which led into bizarre medical facilities or odd, closed-in glass observation centers.

Closed-in was not an entirely appropriate description. Claustrophobic did it more justice.

A lone Krimzon Guard was standing on duty next to a doorway, his helmet resting next to his boots instead of on his head, where it was supposed to be worn at all times. The reason for this was immediately apparent as he rubbed one eye, yawned widely, and started cleaning out his ear.

He had a split second to regret his lack of headgear when the vent cover he was standing beneath fell out of its housing and _klonged _heavily on the top of his head, knocking him out cold.

Had the KG still been awake, he would have witnessed a green-haired girl vaulting out of the vent and landing in a crouch. As she straightened up and started dusting herself off, a small orange creature followed her, misjudging his leap and nearly impaling himself on the silver handgun he held in his paws.

The final member of the little band of rescuers had to clamber awkwardly through an opening hardly wide enough for his shoulders, before he tumbled out and landed unceremoniously on his rear. The fuzzy creature leapt to his feet and started posing like a Charlie's Angel, before he noticed the unfortunate sentry.

"Hey, Jak, for once the curse decided to pick on someone else!" he said, grinning his patented overly wide grin.

Jak leaned over, trying to see if the sentry would wake up soon. "It would be just our luck if he's one of those guys that has to report in every few minutes-"

Which was when the speaker in the helmet erupted into static, static distorting a voice which said,_ "All Alpha. Report in," _

"You _had _to say it, didn't you," Miala growled.

Jak resolved to find out which deity he'd pissed off.

"Uh…maybe they'll think he's just asleep," Daxter said hopefully. Then he glanced back down at the man on the floor and prodded him carefully. "Actually, he IS asleep."

"Don't be optimistic, Weasel-Boy," Miala sighed. "Optimism is just another way to be stupid."

The voice of the com was becoming louder and angrier.

Jak glared angrily at the Guard for a moment. Shooting him would leave more evidence that they were here…"I think we should go," he muttered.

They went.

--

Logic said that they should keep together in the hopes that, if and when they met some more Guards, they would be able to overpower them with greater numbers. Of course, logic_ also_ said that one cannot be thrown into prison for doing nothing, or tortured for no reason, and as for the whole time-travel thing, well...

_Logic is such a liar. _

Jak never gave much thought to logic because of the number of times it had proven it didn't like him. So when they came to a fork in the corridor, Jak decided to ignore the insistent little voice in his head (and also the one on his shoulder) that said they should stick together.

"I go right, you go left."

"And your reasoning behind this would be…"

"We'll be to cover more ground…and you don't wanna waste these speakers things, right?" Actually Jak wanted to get away from her, if just for a few sweet minutes…never mind that he'd promised to rescue her brother, he could do that without her, right?

His run on thoughts were yelling at him so loudly, he didn't register Miala's reply.

"Ah, what, sorry?"

"You heard me," she said pointedly.

Before Jak had time to point out that no, he hadn't heard, she was gone, bouncing down the corridor as though she was having the greatest fun in the world, manic determination in her eyes.

Jak thought he might have heard the echoes of a whisper… "_I'm coming, bro…I'm coming to save you…_"

"She scares me," Daxter muttered.

Jak grinned wickedly. "I thought that was my job."

Daxter rolled his eyes, the picture of exasperation incited by his friend's ignorance. "No. _You_ don't scare me. _You_ embarrass me."

"Oh yeah. Must remember that next time you get hold of all that liquor down at the Hip Hog-"

"Fuck you," Daxter said without malice as he bounded back up onto Jak's shoulder, setting his usual heroic pose firmly in place.

Jak almost laughed. Almost. "Please don't."

He started off down the corridor, ears pricked for any sound apart from the usual _clangs_ as his boots came down. His eyes darted nervously from side to side, and occasionally he slipped into the shadows as a Guard patrol passed by. When this happened, Jak generally kept his hand on Daxter's mouth, as the ottsel had an unfortunate tendency to sneeze at completely inopportune times – like when they were inches away from being caught. The muffled protesting squeaks the ottsel made at these times were enough to make him twitch slightly.

He was about six minutes into this sneaking, jumping-at-shadows mentality when he realized he didn't know what he was looking for.

It took a little while to find a door that wasn't locked, and then a little while longer to get Daxter to stop posing long enough to find a decent hiding place. Crouching behind a large stack of ammo crates, it took a moment's experimentation with the earpiece before it let out an ear-splitting squeal of feedback, followed by a few moments of swearing – Miala was at the other end.

_ "Oh sh- for Mar's sake, Jak, warn me before you do that again!" _

Daxter leapt down from Jak's shoulder armor again and started aiming at non-existent enemies.

"Since you seem to be the leader of this little operation-" Jak let sarcasm creep into his voice for Miala's benefit, "-what are we supposed to be looking for? How do you plan to get this guy out? And, while we're at it, how the hell are supposed to find him in the first place?"

Jak could almost hear the wheels grinding in the girl's brain as she stopped cursing for a moment and thought. He almost groaned aloud. _She didn't even think about the plan before getting in here? I'm so walking into a deathtrap-_

_'Not planning? Certain death? Hot temper? Sounds like someone we know, eh, Errand Boy?' _ said a snide little voice in his head.

"Oh, be quiet," he muttered aloud without thinking, causing Daxter to stare at him.

_ "We need to find a computer terminal. There's bound to be a list of prisoners and stuff – you know, a log?"_ Miala told them, her voice weaving its way past the static that clouded the transmission.

"Roger that. Anything else?"

Miala wasted another few seconds on silence. _ "Try to keep quiet. No gunfire unless it's absolutely necessary. You hear that, Jak?"_

Jak didn't hear it because her voice was drowned out by an ear-shattering _pop_ – the unmistakable sound of a Pinger going off.

Jak glanced at Daxter. The ottsel was trying to look innocent – a losing proposition, considering the smoke rising from the hole near his feet. Another stream of smoke was rising from the barrel of the Pinger Miala had given him, which was pointed directly at the hole.

If glares had been bullets, there would have been an identical crater in the middle of Daxter's head.

He said, "Whoops."

_"Did I just hear what I think I heard?" _

"If you mean the sound of Daxter giving away our position to every single KG in this whole bitch of a facility, then yes, Miala, you just heard what you think you heard," Jak growled, watching Daxter grin sheepishly, and feeling a sudden urge to rip that grin off his face with his bare hands. "What does your _plan_ say to do when this happens?"

_"I think-"_ she stopped talking for a moment and swore as gunfire and shouts sounded in the background. _"I think this is where stealth goes to hell-"_

There was a final burst of static, then the com went silent.

--

_I hate ottsels. I hate ottsels. I hate ottsels. _

Miala repeated the words in her head as though they were a mantra. They ran round and round in her head as she pounded down the corridor, casting aside the broken speaker that had been hooked into her ear, alarms shrieking her presence to the Guards, and anyone else within a five-mile radius. Bullets whistled by her ears and shouts echoed up the corridor behind her – angry yells, targeting her.

Pursuing her.

She sprinted through the labyrinthine corridors, darting left and right at random, hoping to lose her pursuers or find some kind of hiding place – but the curse had decided to pick on her today, and instead she ran straight into a patrol.

_I hate ottsels. I hate ottsels. I hate ottsels. _

She kept repeating them as she skidded around a corner and came face to face with seven KG. They looked none-too-pleased to see her.

In one swift motion she dived to the floor, rolled and came up firing, her shots bouncing off walls or pinging into nothingness or all too rarely connecting with flesh, burning a sizzling hole and dropping the Guard she'd hit. Two of them went down this way, their dying screams gurgling into static as they fell.

_I hate ottsels._

The five remaining KG kept coming, dodging behind stacks of equipment with the speed their training brought, moving with ease in spite of their heavy armor. Unfortunately for them, it offered little protection against the immensely more powerful shots of her stolen Blaster. Recoil was problem, another reason why her shots had a hard time finding their marks – she was too inexperienced with two-handed weapons for her to compensate properly. But it was still an improvement. Her old Pinger's shots would simply have rebounded away.

Still it was not enough to earn her an advantage – she was losing ground, and they were all firing now, the bullets sizzling past her ears. Letting forth a constant stream of obscenities as the gun ran dry, she ducked, reloaded the weapon and kept blasting away as fast as the trigger mechanism would allow.

Not enough…as she ducked behind a flash-ridden console to reload, an idea came to her…flicking a switch on the whip-cord attachment on the Blaster, she suddenly leapt out of hiding and shouted, "Jak! There you are! Thank Mar!"

The Guards turned, panicking, terrified that the most wild of bar stories had come true…but there was nothing there.

_Dumbasses,_ she thought, quietly.

When they hurriedly looked back at the girl, she had vanished. They gave a shout of surprise and started searching fruitlessly amongst the crates.

Miala clung to the metal support beam she'd managed to snatch when the whipcord had snagged the ceiling, and prayed. All they had to do was look up…a single shot could bring her down, far enough to break bones if they didn't shoot her as she fell… But even more feverishly, she repeated the mantra that was going through her head since she walked in here…

_I hate ottsels. I hate ottsels. I hate ottsels. _

_--_

When Torn had first told them the meaning of the word _fubar_, Jak had snorted and Daxter has laughed so hard he'd become dehydrated (or at least, he'd said he'd been dehydrated – Jak wasn't convinced he hadn't been trying to milk sympathy from Tess). It was actually a Krimzon Guard term for a situation, one so advanced it required the use of profanity to describe it properly.

What it stood for: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Five minutes.

That was how long it took for the plan to get fubar.

Fighting for his life with an ottsel screaming in his ear, Jak suddenly didn't find it very funny.

"WILL YOU CUT IT OUT?!" he yelled at Daxter, who completely ignored him, possibly because he couldn't hear him over the ear-splitting yelps he was making every time a bullet came within five feet. Jak hurled himself forward, tackling a Guard off his feet, making Daxter scream all the louder and the other Guards grunt as they cleared his path. After a moment of very confused fighting, the KG was on the floor with his neck broken and Jak was up and firing, sending off each shot with an appropriate curse.

"We're gonna die, we're so gonna die…" Daxter's claws were beginning to dig into his armor.

"Dax, you aren't helping…"

Daxter actually seemed to hear him this time and yelled, "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

No more energy for speech…Jak risked waving his Blaster in front of the ottsel's nose, on whom the light suddenly dawned. Raising the Pinger that had caused all the trouble in the first place, he start firing…

"We're still gonna die, you know," he pointed out.

"Pessimist," Jak tried to say, but cut himself off with a shout as fiery pain blossomed through his shoulder and the world suddenly flickered like a dying light bulb. Trying to ignore the pain or at least prevent himself from swatting the ottsel off his shoulder before he busted an eardrum, he flicked his gun to Vulcan and sent a deadly barrage hurtling towards the Guards.

_That girl had better be_ _fucking grateful for this… _hissing through his teeth, Jak brought his gun-barrel crashing down onto the helmet of a KG…the man collapsed without even a shout, tripping him up as he fumbled for a new clip…

Jak bared his teeth. _Better be _real_ grateful…_

- -

Miala wasn't afraid of heights, or at least, she could stand on the top bough of a hundred meter tree in Haven Forest without breaking a sweat. So why was it, that when she was only seven or eight feet above the ground, supported by a metal beam much sturdier than a tree branch, that she could barely move her limbs, much less scramble to safety? Fear was freezing her body and mind – thought had slowed to a trickle. She would not have been able at move at all had adrenaline not saturated her system, due to the multitude of "hostiles" (as they were calling her) beneath.

_It must be something to do with the situation, _she thought sluggishly as she inched along the beam; hand over hand, hanging upside down like a sloth. It was all she could do to keep moving and not dissolve into a shrieking mess.

Risking a glance that caused savage pain to attack the muscles in her neck, she counted thirteen…fifteen Guards milling around below her…they were confused and angry, speculating amongst themselves where that weird girl with the green hair and funny eyes had gone and worried about the lack of replies to their queries from the higher-ups. All would have been well for her, if those fifteen KG had not been grouped right in front of a door that was conveniently labeled "Operations Center". Cords and wires that were set in the roof (readily visible from her position) ran into it…something in there needed a lot of juice, something important…

_Something like a computer containing prisoners' records? _

It was possible…if she didn't screw up at all…she had the element of surprise after all…even if numbers were considerably stacked against her…no one ever expected an attack from above…right?

She tried to bolster her courage and realized that she had none.

_Right? _

Without thought, without even the faintest ripple of consciousness to note that she had made the decision, she simply gave in to the frantic screams of her aching limbs and let go…dazed, yet somehow deeply happy she had done it, she tumbled in mid-air and landed, feeling oddly jelly-like. Determination rose and sent strength into her limbs, and she smiled in satisfaction.

_I'm coming to get you, Myka. Just hold on…_

Fire, spin, kick, fire again…nothing could stop her, she would find her brother, find him and save him and _see him again. _ That was the most important thing, the noises of the fight fading into insignificance…she ignored screams and cries of pain, ignored gunshots and scuffles and the clangs of armor against the floor when the Guards fell…

But she could not ignore the pain.

_Pain…_she suddenly came back to total awareness with a jolt, the sounds and sensations crashing in on her like cold water…suddenly her knees were buckling, and she placed her hand against her side and pulled it away…

There was blood on her hands…her blood. She had been shot without even noticing it.

_'What?' _ she thought in a detached sort of way.

Then the ground came rushing up to meet her and she didn't think anything at all.

- -

BWA HA HA HA HAAAA! CLIFFIE! I waited all this time to bring you a cliffhanger! I am SOO evil.

Vader: And insane.

Necralis: Yep! Now! I won't bother you with my distracting babble. Review and I will update quicker! TTFN!


	8. Chapter 8

When I Grow Up

By Necralis

- -

Necralis: GAH! I'm starting it again for the FIFTH EFFING TIME! Just WHAT is WRONG with me?

Vader: Yer a bloody perfectionist.

Necralis: I AIN'T! You is. 'Tis trooooo. (Points at Vader) Vadie won' let me kill Keira. (Whiny voice) Won' let me do a self-insertion either.

Vader: Self-insertions always turn into BLOODY MARY SUES! And anyway, there's TOO MANY OF THE EFFING THINGS!

Necralis: Mmm. (nods sagely) I guess. Same as we have too many FRIGGIN slash fictions. I am firmly anti-slash. It's unoriginal, slightly sickening in some cases (I'm thinkin' mainly Zim/Dib (Invader Zim) and Jack Sparrow/Will Turner (Pirates of the Caribbean) type pairings, here) and there's too much of it. And people read all of it no matter how _bad_ it is. And it gets all the comments. (sniff)

Now! This chappie is more about Miala than Jakku, with another OC introduced…one of my favorites so far, actually, though she isn't a Mary Sue…nuh-uh. So enjoy. And review.

DISCLAIMER I bet I've made people angry with my comments about slash…I'm entitled to my opinion. At least I don't flame. Anyway Jak and Daxxie aren't my characters…Miala, Myka, their parents (…who are dead…) and their history are all mine, as is the plot, and various gadgets. Oh. And one more character who will pop up in this chapter…(mysterious smile) Bleh. Meh better get going.

- -

Chapter Eight__

In the ominous half-light of the Fortress Prison, Jak lay quietly behind a stack of ammo boxes – he thought they were ammo boxes. Daxter perched on top of the heap like the bird someone had once mistaken him for, muttering to himself about 'that frigging Jak never pulling his weight in this partnership', crouching and peering over the edge.

"See anything?"

"Some blonde whacko with an overly short fuse tryna' hide behind a bunch of crates – Oh, you mean Guards? None of _those_ guys. Yet." The ottsel hopped lightly down the stack, landing neatly on Jak's shoulder armor. "I reckon the coast is clear."

Jak tried to squint at him suspiciously, but Daxter was far more interested in scratching the back of his neck with his hind leg. "Are you _sure_ about that?"

"Couldn't be surer," Daxter said offhandedly.

Murmuring a curse on all scatter-brained crazy chicks, the blonde prison escapee slid out of hiding and started wandering down the corridor. Daxter put his elbow into Jak's temple leaning against his head. "What d'you s'pose happened to that green-haired psycho?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Reckon she's dead?"

Jak tried to say, "Could be," offhandedly but he couldn't quite pull it off.

They came to a fork and Daxter leapt off Jak's shoulder, considered for a moment and darted down the left. Jak followed, the ottsel's flame-orange fur seeming almost luminescent in the gloom.

The corridors became a labyrinth and Jak gave up trying to figure out where they were going. The silence was eerie, broken only by the scrabbling of Daxter's claws against the steel and his own hollow, clanking footsteps.

Then they rounded a corner and Daxter froze and said "Oh shite-linger".

They had wandered into a large, echoing chamber complete with humming machinery patiently clinking over their heads. Garish warning signs written in the simple, blocky alphabet used by the Guards for labels and messages were scrawled on much of what they could see. The feature that Jak noticed the _most,_ however, was the same one that sent a chill crawling down his back – there were no visible doors. No way out.

The room was what most people called a dead end.

He didn't get time to choke before something cold, metal and undoubtedly dangerous poked into his back and a crackling voice spat the word, "_Freeze"._

He dutifully froze. He had no desire to get his head blown off.

"Drop your weapon, convict."

Jak did not comply. Not moving was one thing. Relinquishing his gun was another thing entirely. "Fuck you."

A gun barrel smacked into the back of his head and knocked him sprawling as a constellation of stars swirled into existence inside his head.

_"We're _the ones giving the orders here, Underground scum. You're coming with us. Unless you want to go the way of that green-haired whacko woman-"

"_Now_ I'm frightened," he said to the floor.

I may be in trouble after all.

 He did not resist when one of the guards pulled him roughly to his feet and forced a pair of metal handcuffs over his wrists. "What green-haired whacko woman would that be?"

"None of your fucking business, Eco-freak."

Jak sighed inwardly. _They never got my name right,_ he thought sadly. Being shoved into line reminded him a little of when he'd been dragged, bruised and bleeding, into his own cell after his very first 'Eco Treatment'.

Daxter, meanwhile, was shrieking a mixture of swearwords and demands to see his lawyer as one of the Guards picked him up by the scruff of the neck. The Guard in front of Jak made the mistake of turning around to glance at him, taking his eyes off the convict –

Who wheeled around, flipped the chain of his cuffs over the KG's helmeted head (it badly lacerated one if his ears), yanking backward with all his strength as he jammed his boot into the small of his back and _shoved._

The Guard's neck made a horrible grinding noise, then he went limp.

Daxter sank his fangs into the hand of the Guards holding him – he gave a yelp and dropped him. The ottsel skittered forward, leapt onto the back of the KG leader and jammed his helmet over his eyes, taking the opportunity to snag a tiny, square keycard and toss it to Jak.

"Go Team Extreme!" he yelled, waving his paws like a cheerleader. "Give me a D! Give me an A- whoa!" He suddenly wavered on his perch as the Guard he was standing on tried to swat him off. Daxter just hung on for dear life, making occasional comments about 'Ridin' 'em, Cow-Dax!'

Jak tried hard not to grin at the ottsel's idiocy, waving the chip in the general vicinity of the cuffs – they relinquished their grip and fell off with a _clank_. His hands finally free, he whipped out his Morph Gun and pulled the trigger-

The gun went 'clik'. Nothing else happened.

He stared at it in disbelief.

Out. Of. Ammo.

And this trouble I'm in might just be serious.

His mind flashed back to the Hip-Hog – his usual list of duties, Get Paid, yell at Daxter, Top Up on Ammo –

What a time to forget the most important bit.

His shout of frustration was lost in Daxter's repeated screeches. Ducking beneath a shot fired from one of the Guard's Blaster's, he rolled aside and flung himself behind the nearest cover – a pile of crates, oddly enough – and started a little in surprise as one of them bellowed "_Don't shoot, you morons!"_

He stared at the insignia that his eyes finally made sense of.

DANGER. HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE. KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE.

Running like a child might not have been the most dignified course but he was not about to quibble as hiding behind a stack of _explosive crates_ rated slightly more than massively stupid in his books – hurling himself out from behind the stack and back to the fray was maybe just a little less suicidal. So he did it.

He had to duck a flying ottsel. Daxter had finally been flung off.

"Kill him, you idiots!" bellowed the leader that had thrown him.

"Jak!" Daxter scrambled back onto his shoulder and yelled into his ear. "Use the thing! _The thing-_

He didn't get any further because a wildly miss-aimed taser-bolt connected with him. The electricity spread itself through his fuzzy body, making him jerk and twitch as the charge plucked at his nerves like violin strings and he gave a scream of pain and slid off Jak's shoulder to the floor-

Jak gave a disbelieving cry. He dropped his gun tried to snatch him out of the air – holding the fragile bundle of fur and trying not to choke, he could not see if the ottsel was still breathing.

A purely animal snarl escaped him and he gave the Guard that had shot him a glance that was hatred and fury and pain all mixed up into one.

Then his mind was engulfed in rushing darkness and his hand, tipped with vicious claws, shot out and rammed itself into the KG's midriff and emerged, covered in blood, from the other side.

The rest of the fight lasted less than thirty seconds.

Ripping and tearing became his whole world. The Guards could not hit him and they generally could not get more than one shot in. He would _kill_ them, every single last one of them that had dared to cause him so much pain and had now taken from him his best friend.

His only friend.

The floor was treacherously slippery when he came to himself. Staggering from the exhaustion he knelt at the ottsel's side and picked him up, cradling him in his hands.

"Dax," he whispered, though his throat was constricted almost too much for speech. "Come on, come back, we gotta finish what we started…"

But Daxter did not move and he did not open his eyes.

- -

_Ouch_, said Miala's brain.

The reason for that was immediately clear – she was jammed in a most uncomfortable position, up against a wall, with her hands tied behind her back. Her head and side throbbed dully, and moving hurt.

_Must've fallen out of a tree again,_ she thought. Then she remembered what had happened and she opened her eyes and flung herself upright – her head met a solid barrier with astonishing force that added an angry headache to her many aches and pains.

_Maybe,_ she thought, sinking dazedly back down, _I had better just lie still._

What was going on? She had tried to break into the operations room – she knew that, and had been badly injured. But she had no idea how she had ended up bound and aching on a bunk in what she assumed was a cell. She decided she might as well take a look at her surroundings, as she would likely be spending quite a while within them. She cracked open one eye, then the other, sat up more carefully and looked around.

She _was_ in a cell, a tiny one, with a washbasin in one corner and a hole that probably served as a - right. There were no windows. A thick, solid looking door with a barred slot was let into one wall.

Apart from that there was only the stench of old sweat and fear, and a pattern of rust on the top bunk – she thought it was rust. Hoped it was rust. It was cold. Miala drew herself into a fetal ball to try and conserve heat and discovered her pouch and Blaster were both missing, and an Eco Patch covered her side, undoubtedly healing her gunshot wound. It hurt. But less than it should have. She wondered how long she had been in here.

"You're awake, are you?"

She jumped and bashed her skull into the top of the bunk again at the sound of the voice.

"Whoa, whoa, don't be scared, little girl, I ain't gonna hurt you." A scarred, lined face was staring at her upside down from the top bunk.

"Who…who are you?" she ventured.

The face cackled. "The name's Diaz, girly – Diaz the Thief. Best in Haven. Or at least I was. Know who you are, of course," the person added – she, Miala realized, though her voice so craggy and hoarse it was hard to tell – "You're Cora's little daughter." Diaz's eyes were grey, like her hair, though there were faint streaks here and there of what might have been fiery red. Despite the dull colour of her eyes, they still gleamed with manic fire – quite unlike the rest of her. She was so wasted and thin that her cheekbones stuck out like blades and her skin was extremely pale – as though she had not seen sunlight for years. Despite this, she seemed young, almost childish – full of hyperactive energy that made her twitch and wriggle. She couldn't seem to sit still.

Miala did not know this woman from anywhere, though that might have been because her mother had never taken her to the market where she worked. "How did you know my mother?"

Diaz was staring at her feet. Her head snapped up with surprising suddenness. She grinned a decidedly evil grin.

"She was fun to steal from," said the woman in a singsong voice, "but she was also a good person. Saved my ass a coupla times. Almost made me return what I nicked."

"Her husband, now-" she kicked her legs back and forth and nearly overbalanced and fell "-strict old bastard, he was. Decent guy, though – hard to see why he joined the Guards."

"Hey," said Miala, annoyed, "he was my Dad, you know."

"I know that, sweetheart, but see, I'm not the kind to stop bein' honest about a person just 'cause they're dead."

"Now-" The woman leapt down from her bunk and landed lightly in a crouch. "I think you'll want me to remove those bonds, correct?"

"With what?" Miala scowled at her, thinking she was making fun, "I don't think you've got a knife hidden in that thing-"

She was, in fact, dressed in an ugly green jumpsuit with some incomprehensible lettering across the front. It was torn in places and her feet were bare, but she seemed unperturbed by the freezing cold floor as she capered around the cell. Miala wondered briefly if she was insane.

Diaz was quite young, it seemed – something had drained her of her youth. Miala jumped again as she produced a knife – a stub of a thing, but shiny even in the half-light. Diaz whipped it in a blindingly fast swipe – but it only slashed through Miala's bonds. Muttering something about stupid pieces of shit that weren't any use for escaping, she tucked the knife away into her jumpsuit.

"Sticky fingers, hon'," she grinned, "Ain't no one safe from Diaz the Thief."

The girl stood up. "Thanks," she said, rubbing her chafed wrists. The pain from her bullet wound was almost gone by now.

"No prob," said Diaz, smiling. "Always glad to help out a friend of Cora – or daughter in this case. I hope you take after your mother, Miss- I'm sorry, I didn't catch you name."

"My name's Miala."

"Charmed." The woman stuck out a hand that was as scarred as the rest of her. Miala shook it.

"So-" Diaz clambered nimbly back up onto the top bunk- "Whatcha do to get in here?"

Miala thought about it. "Hung out with a criminal. Blew up a factory. Broke into an operations center."

Diaz looked impressed.

"I was trying to help my brother," Miala added hastily, ignoring the little voice that told her she'd enjoyed most of it. "What did you do?"

Diaz looked thoughtful. "Almost the same as you did, though with less explosions and more thieving." She smiled, showing slightly yellowed teeth. "Oh, by the way-" she pulled a rectangle of bronzy metal from beneath her mattress – "I snagged this from the Red-Head bastard that brought you in. Looked important."

Miala stared at the cel of her family and said nothing.

"It's how I knew you were Cora's daughter. Sweet little thing she was – maybe a bit too softhearted. Better then the opposite, I suppose." The woman glanced at the cel, then pointed at her brother. "Who's the spunk?"

Miala went red. "That's my _brother_!" she said, scandalized.

"He's a cutey."

"Oh…shut up. The guy in the armor is my dad. And the girl covered in mud-"

"-is you. I guessed." She smiled again, the expression making her look somewhat less wasted. "Nice war paint."

"Oh yeah," Miala grinned at the memory, "I hated having my cel taken. I always tried to mess myself up as much as I could so they wouldn't take it. But they always did," she sighed.

Diaz gave a smirk. "Got a good reason to hate bein' taken, girly," she said softly. The prisoner stared at her feet again. "You're gonna be in here for a while…a long time."

Miala looked at her. "How long have you been in here?"

"Four _wonderful_ years, hon'," she seemed to wilt slightly. "Horrible place. Think I'm this skinny by choice?"

Miala frowned. "What do they feed you…us?"

"Shit," said Diaz gravely. "But it's not just the physical that gets you…fucks with your brain, you know? People sort of give up hope…hope that they're gonna be free, hope that they'll ever see their family again…"

"You seem pretty sane," Miala pointed out. She was starting to hate the idea of staying here, but she was pretty sure Jak would at least try to get her out…but she was starting to like this strange woman, despite her distracting twitches.

"Cha…well, the way I see it, is that you gotta _laugh_. Makes me sound crazy, huh? Maybe I am, but at least I don't get carried outta here cause I started starving myself."

Miala voiced something that had been bothering her. "Don't… don't you get let out once you've served your sentences?"

Diaz laughed harshly. "_Sentences?_ For us to have _sentences_ we'd have to have a _trial_. Whatever you've heard about this prison, girly, don't believe a friggin' word of it – unless it's bad. Then it's been softened up."

She leapt down from her bunk again and wandered over to the washbasin. Turning the tap produced brown stuff, until Diaz cursed and swatted at it a few times. Water came out, and she filled her cupped hands and splashed it across her face.

"Trust me, hon', you're gonna stop bein' cheerful before long – and it won't just be the cold water that wakes you up. This place is hell."

Miala bowed her head.

Diaz bounded over to her and patted her on the head with one freezing cold hand. "But hey, gotta remember to _laugh,_ okay? I'm starting to like havin' a cell mate."

- -

Jak stared at his friend.

He was still lying there, completely inert – he might have been sleeping. Jak didn't know anything about ottsel physiology, and was certain he was gone – but all he could do was stare at Daxter, lost in his own misery and guilt. He remembered how he had brushed Daxter off, how he'd said he didn't need him anymore-

He now realized what a lie that was. He missed him more than anything in the world.

It wasn't like when he'd done that mission – now he had no chance of bringing him back, no matter what he said or did…he tried not to think about how Daxter had felt when he'd left him…

It was too much. He found he needed to sit down, but he could not tear his eyes away.

"Come back Daxter," he had to whisper…

And then, as though his words had power all their own, the ottsel stirred and opened his eyes.

"Man, that stung…" he muttered.

"Dax?" Jak could not believe it. "Dax!"

Unable to curb himself, he picked up the ottsel and hugged him.

"Ahh! Aaah! Easy on the merchandise, buddy! I've just been fried to a crisp and…" He look down at his own fur, "Damn, I'm going to be smoothin' frizz for a week…" Jak realized what he was doing and dropped him.

"Fuck, Dax…I thought you'd been killed!"

"Killed? _Me?_ Nah way!" The ottsel leapt to his feet and posed. "I'm inde-fucking-structable!"

Jak was now thoroughly embarrassed, but that did not stop him picking up Daxter and depositing him on his shoulder.

"Come on, Dax," he muttered, "we gotta go save the crazy chick."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…reckon she'll give me a thank you kiss?"

- -

Miala looked at the faded remnant of the best thief in Haven. She had fallen asleep, dropping into slumber like a stone. Something about her seemed kind of familiar – like she had met her once when she was very young. But Miala was pretty certain she'd have remembered someone like Diaz.

The woman jerked and whimpered slightly, pawing at the air as though it was attacking her. "Fffffuzzman…Kayet you bizatch…sssssold us all out…fffuck you…"

Miala sighed and sat cross-legged on her own bunk. One thing the prisoner had not mentioned was how _boring_ it was in here. None of the other prisoners were up to talking – although shrieking seemed within their capabilities – unless it was hallucinatory babbling she did not understand nor wanted to understand.

They had not given her a green jumpsuit like the one Diaz wore yet. The prisoner said that they only gave you those after your first few months in the Prison.

Her words: "After they think they've broken your spirit. Not that they've managed it with me yet-" she had given a smile that was entirely teeth and creepiness – "They just _think_ they have. Makes 'em stop trying."

Diaz was right – this place was _hell._

She was losing track of how long she'd been in here.

The only other human contact was with the Guards, though they barely made the rating. She could hear them marching past and bellowing at the mumbling prisoners to keep quiet. Every once in a while someone would retaliate by swearing or trying to strike out at them – their strangled cries of pain were loud enough for her to sink deeper into her fetal ball and cover her ears.

How could her brother _survive_ in here? How- _No,_ she told her brain. _He's still here, he has to be or all this has been for nothing…_

Where the hell was Jak?

"Didn't get any sleep, did you?"

Diaz was hanging upside down again.

"No…"

"You better," she said. "Passes the time." She swung her stick-like legs over the edge of her bunk and stared dreamily into the distance.

"Um…Diaz?"

"Hmm?" The woman suddenly seemed to withdraw from the real world, staring into the distance.

"Did you ever see my brother get brought in?"

Diaz slid over the edge of the bunk and onto the floor. "Saw him," she confirmed.

"Really? Do you know what he looks like?"

Diaz paused for several seconds as if choosing her words."…He was the dark-haired, wiry guy, right? Brown eyes?"

"Yeah…this would have been, maybe four years ago? Just after you came in here? That's why I actually came here in the first place."

Diaz stared moodily at the door. She looked more withdrawn than ever, and suddenly older, as though the light had gone off in her eyes. She did not speak for several moments. "…Yeah. Yeah, I saw them bring him in."

"_And?_" Miala said anxiously. "Which cell? Was he okay? Did the Guards break anything he might ne-"

"He was alright. At least, then he was alright."

Diaz bowed her head.

Miala couldn't understand why the woman was giving her such short answers. "So which cell did they put him in? Can I talk to him?"

Diaz looked at her. Her expression became very, very tired. "Did you ever hear of the Dark Warrior Program?"

What Miala thought was, _I've seen the bloody thing. _What she said was, "Yes."

"They'd pick out a bunch of prisoners – especially the men, and especially the biggest and strongest and…and they'd…" The cragged voice broke. "They'd strap them up to the machine out there, and they'd try…all sorts of things on them…this one guy was injected with Dark Eco for _months_ on end, almost without break-" Diaz put her face in her hands, apparently reliving their tortured shrieks in her head – "It was…it was horrible. You could hear them."

Miala's stomach clenched. "But what - what has this got to do with Myka?"

"I watched them bring him in," Diaz didn't appear to have heard her. "I watched them pick him…he was so…young, they thought maybe it would be better on a smaller person…but – but-"

Suddenly Miala didn't want to hear any more, suddenly she was terrified and angry and empty…the cel slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a clang she never heard…she was empty, she had been too _late_, too _slow_, too _useless, _she would never see him again, Jak had probably been killed by now and it had all been for _nothing…_

She gave a scream that was not of anger or terror but pain, a suffering so agonizing she wanted to keep screaming until she ran out of breath and didn't have to listen to her own guilt. The shriek reverberated around the cell but she kept on screaming until her throat was stripped raw and felt like it was bleeding and it petered out to a whimper and she felt so cold that she had to collapse into a shivering heap and cry.

But she could not cry. Could not shed a tear for her brother. She had wasted them on the rest of her family.

She gave a dry retch and Diaz dragged her over to the basin and let her throw up.

Finally she curled into a ball on the floor of the cell and tried to bury her head in her lap. Diaz carefully picked the cel and looked at it, then gave a quiet gasp of astonishment.

Miala was past caring. She curled tighter and tried to shut away the hole in her heart where Myka had been.

"Girl…Miala…I think you need to see this…"

"Fuck that." Her voice was as hoarse as Diaz's own.

"Listen…Miala…"

"I said – fuck – that!" Miala was suddenly on her feet again, glaring at the woman with unreasoning anger. "You don't _know_ what it's like, you don't know what I need, you just sat there and watched, while he – while he-" she couldn't finish the sentence. "Get the _hell_ away from me, you cowardly…you fucking…"

Diaz slapped her across the face. It was not a hard slap, but surprising, and Miala staggered backwards and stared at her in disbelief.

"I _couldn't_ do anything. You hear me? _Couldn't._ I would have done _anything_ to save him…him and all the people that fucking bastard put through the mincer…but I _couldn't. _I dare you to watch something like that…from inside a place like this…and not have it tear you up on the inside…because you can't do a _fucking thing_ to help." Diaz's eyes were alight again, bright with unshed tears, but she stood straight and tall and suddenly forbidding-

-Then her face crumpled and she sat beside Miala and put her arm around her shoulder.

"I would have helped him. But I couldn't. And you really need to accept that…and, I have something to show you."

Miala shuddered and found she did not have the energy to argue any more.

Diaz held out the cel, but Miala would not take it, so she placed gently against the floor. Then, without so much as a warning, she pulled out the tiny stub of a knife and jammed it into the hologram emitter near the top.

Miala made a strangled noise and tried to yank her hand away, but Diaz shook her off and said, "_Watch_".

The picture of her family flickered, faded, then winked out completely – but another picture swirled to take its place.

It was small, and low quality, with only a few colours that flickered every few frames-

But, without the shadow of a doubt, it was her brother.

He looked older, straight backed, standing in some kind of facility with bolts of electricity flickering occasionally in the back ground, wearing armor and a red scarf that looked familiar…very familiar…

Then this shade of Myka opened his mouth, and his voice was tinny, amplified…

"Hi, Mia."

She didn't move.

"Vin's recording this for me. Jittering like a lunatic. Says it's his last favor for me, and that he'll report me to the Baron next time I come to see him." The boy smiled. "It was Diaz's idea. Smart-ass that she is, said it'd be something of value to bribe my parents with. Doesn't know that they're gone."

Miala didn't look at the woman next to her, terrified of what she'd see.

"I guess…" here, he hesitated, joking manner gone, "I guess this is a confession. A long overdue one. I'm not sure if you'll accept it – I know Dad wouldn't approve – but I think maybe you will. You were always pretty gullible, Mia.

"I'm a member of the Underground. I have been since I was thirteen. This whole mission – we need the supplies, the medical stuff, since it's forbidden to trade with us and all that shite. We don't need the weapons, though, I reckon they might be more trouble then they're worth, but I think Kayet's gonna go for them…she's been acting a little strange lately…

"Dad always said that the Underground were a bunch of anarchist scum. Screw him. I know you'll think this is disrespectful, but Mia – he didn't understand what we're about. The Baron isn't the true ruler of the city, and he's just making this whole Metal Head thing worse than it needs to be. Torn says that we've only got a few years left 'til they break through the wall. So we're preparing. All of us. We need to knock him off the throne and bring on someone who'll…I don't know…be able to fix the shield wall or maybe destroy the Metal Head's somehow…

"Anyway, if you actually got this message, then I hope I'm there with you laughing at how stupid I look in low-res. If I'm not…I guess…I have to say how much I love you, and how glad I am that you're my sister. Shit," he added, blushing red, "would you like some relish with that cheese?

"Vin's waving his arms off camera now. I think he means the chip is running low on memory. So, goodbye, Mia – I hope this mission goes ok, and that I won't need to show you this message.

"You can turn it off now, Vin. Oh, don't give me tha-"

The picture cut him off mid-word, and fuzzed back into its usual shot of her family.

Miala stared at Diaz, lost for words.

"Told ya you'd want to see it," grumbled the thief.

- -

Necralis: Done! Frigging DONE! I did it! After all that staring at the screen banging my head…

Vader: They'll hate it.

Necralis: No they won't. Didn't hate the other chapters. Did they? Hey, did you guys like Diaz? I think she's kinda cool…Oh yeah…(cries) Oh…I just confirmed the death of an OC…my first…(sniff) I hope I did it right.

Vader: Nah you didn't.

Necralis: Oh…shut up, you damn weasel. NOW! Time for reviewing! Hope you enjoyed! Hope you cried! Well not really…well sort of…well…shut up, brain.

Vader: Oh dear…

Necralis: Next one might be the final! Ooh! Ciao!


	9. Chapter 9

When I Grow Up

By Nano-Moose (previously Necralis)

Nano-Moose: Spider Man, Spider Man, does whatever a spider can…

Vader: We are back.

Nano-Moose: Spins a web, any size…

Vader: and we are ANGRY.

Nano-Moose: Catches thieves just like flies…

Vader: I mean, TWO REVIEWS!

Nano-Moose: Look out! Here comes that Spider- OUCH! (stumbles forward because Vader has swatted her on the back of the head) I mean, yeah! What he said! I pour my sweat and blood into this fic AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME!?! Well, okay, not so much sweat and blood as a kinda half-arsed effort worked on when I should be doing Maths homework…BUT STILL!

Vader: You're giving me a bad name!

Nano-Moose: Anyway, we are now very, very close to the end, but we still need another chappie after this one, and then maybe, just maybe, an epilogue…in the mean time, I suggest you read the Spiderman fic 'Falling Feels Like Flying' by one erinflanagan. No, not just suggest, recommend. No, not just recommend, DEMAND! It is utterly, utterly AWESOME! Truly! Even for me, who hasn't actually seen either of the movies and has only read the comics in the paper. It knocks me for six! I admit it! Go read it and…WAIT! WAIT! COME BACK HERE AND READ THIS FIRST OR I'LL…darn. (sits and watches glumly as most of the readers run away to read the wonder fic)

DISCLAIMER I do not own J&D or Jak II (well, I own copies of the games but that's beside the point) or any related characters, locations and plot devices, apart from the ones in this that I made up. These include Miala, her family (all of whom are dead or otherwise …incapacitated) and little old Diaz. The plot is mine. Do not steal or I will eat your brain. Or think of something equally unpleasant, possibly involving a toy Doc Ock arm I happen to know exists…

Chapter 9 (egad! It's longer than Darkened Paths!)

* * *

_Clink _

_Clink_

_Clink_

"How long are you going to be doing that?" Miala hissed at her cellmate.

_Clink_

_Clink_

"Until it bounces." Dully.

_Clink_

_Clink_

Clink 

There were, apparently, several ways of making the time pass in the Fortress Prison. These included screaming, muttering in the dark, yelling insults at the Guard Patrols to see how long it took before they shot you, making mush sculptures with the food and annoying your cellmate.

_Clink_

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Currently, Diaz was fully immersed in the latter pastime.

_Clink _

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It seemed to be approaching nighttime, with some of the lights that hadn't already sputtered out beginning to fade to a marginally less harsh level of brightness. Some of the Guards seemed to be looking at turning in for the night – at least, they were getting more irritable and shouted at people more often. Miala was lounging on her bunk, amusing herself by trying to think of ways to escape without getting parts of her blown off, and also imagining various scenarios to explain what the hell it was that Jak was doing, and Diaz was curled in the corner of her mattress, engaged in picking up her little stub of a knife and dropping it over and over to see if it would bounce.

The noise was slightly more irritating than Daxter, which was quite an extraordinary achievement. At least Daxter _knew_ he was being irritating.

_Clink _

_Clink_

_Clink_

Miala was finding it very hard to take. It had been a trying day, with more revelations than she thought she could stand, and since the message from her brother had been played, Diaz had withdrawn back into her dream world and was now refusing to talk. This was a problem, because Miala actually _wanted _to talk. Diaz seemed to know something about her brother, apart from the whole member-of-illegal-rebellion thing, and Miala wanted to find out what it was.

_Clink _

_Clink_

_Clink_

All she had achieved so far, though, was that infernal noise.

_Clink_

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She couldn't stand it any more.

_Clink_

_Clin-_

"ALRIGHT! I GET THE POINT! YOU'RE BORED! I'M BORED!"

"I think someone's a little tetchy," said Diaz happily.

"I wonder why that could be?" Miala flopped back down on her bunk and stared at the rust patterns. "It couldn't possibly be because my cellmate is engaged in a stupid, and, I might add, utterly pointless experiment, with no sign of letting up any t- wait." She sat up suddenly, head tilted towards the door. "Did you hear that?"

Diaz shifted on her bunk until she was hanging perilously over the side, arms and head pointed at the floor. "No. Hear what?"

Miala could definitely hear it now – faint, rhythmic _clang _noises - footsteps, but no more than that of one person, so it couldn't be a Guard patrol – they did that in threes. Words drifted to her ears too – not harshly distorted and riddled with static, like the KG's voices.

"-saw this really bright light and a guy with a big head who said "Game Over", and then-"

"Are you going to close it while you still have it attached?"

Maia leapt off her bunk and swore as her bullet wound chose that moment to send a stab of pain through her head, but with a remarkable surge of energy she bounded across the cell in three steps and pressed her eyes up to the bars in the door. The was nothing to see, at first, just more green mist and several other prison doors, then a figure appeared – a strangely lop-sided silhouette, which paused at every opening to peer inside.

Either he was taking up a career in inmate observation or…

"Jak! JAK! I'm over here!" Miala stuck her arm through the bars and waved it desperately to catch his attention. The blonde man turned quickly and a look of relief she didn't want to examine too closely spread across his face. Daxter's reaction was to strike a suave pose and say "Never fear, little lady, the Dax-Man is here to-"

"Shut up, Daxter."

Jak crossed to the cell and started hunting for the lock – they could be put in some very odd places on KG doors, and sometimes didn't appear at all, but fortunately someone had had the foresight to label it in nice, big red letters. Harder to crack, however, was the lock itself, until Daxter leapt off Jak's shoulder, examined the console, and pressed an invitingly large red button placed right in the middle. With a _crrrrrrrreesssssh_ that suggested it was too old for this kind of thing, it slid slowly open and Miala darted joyfully into open air. Jak, meanwhile, squinted suspiciously at Diaz as he threw Miala the Blaster he'd found tossed carelessly in a storage room.

"Who the hell are you?" he said bluntly.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," the woman said happily, skipping like a child.

"An inmate," Miala said hastily, noting the 'eh?' expression crossing Jak's face. "Her name's Diaz. And, speaking of which, what the hell took _you_ so long, did you come by rubber floaty?"

Daxter grinned. "Traffic."

"You mean you got us lost."

"Yeah, but at least I knew where I was going! While…I…was…lost and…Hey!" Daxter bounded onto his customary perch and squinted dangerously at Miala. "You haven't exactly been the perfect conspirator yourself, baby, what with 'I'm going to save my brother and-'"

"Did you find him?" Jak cut across the ottsel's whining hastily, though he was grinning. "Because I had to go through three Guard patrols to get here, and I'm thinking an extra pair of hands would be kinda useful-"

Diaz stopped twirling on the spot and suddenly became very interested in the green mist, making patterns in it with her fingers.

A stab of fresh grief went through Miala's heart. It must have shown on her face, because Jak stopped grinning. "Is he okay?"

"He…died. A long time ago." The words did not seem to be her own, coming from a thousand miles away.

Even Daxter shut his mouth. Jak looked for a moment as though he didn't know how to react. Then- "I'm sorry."

"There was nothing…nothing you could have done. That _we_ could have done." Miala looked tired. "There's no reason for us to stay here."

"Right you are, sweetheart," Diaz said suddenly, standing up straight. "Inski, outski, I believe is the term, and outski is looking like a very attractive option right now-"

"What are you in for?"

The question took Diaz by surprise, or maybe it was just the fact that she was faced with escaping after four years. In any case, it took a while for her to answer, and when it came, it was short.

"Theft."

Jak inspected her, and figured if she'd spent any sort of time in the Fortress Prison (and judging by the state of her, she had spent quite a large amount of time) then she could probably be trusted. Probably. "Hey uh…Diaz, is it? Can you shoot?"

Diaz raised an eyebrow. "Underground member, darling. I remember the days when Torn turned away anyone who couldn't break down and reassemble their chosen weapon blindfolded. So to answer your question, I can shoot just fine."

"Good." Without so much as a warning, Jak reached around, jerked Miala's old Pinger out of Daxter's paws and handed it to Diaz, whose face lit up like a Christmas tree. Daxter's mouth, in direct contrast, fell open in such a comical expression of absolute horror that Miala felt an amused _snerk _fight its way out of her.

"Everyone armed?" There was a nod and a murmur, as well as quite a large amount of fuss from Daxter ardently explaining that he wasn't. "Good. Let's go."

Daxter bobbed indignantly. "Hey, big guy, how come the crazy lady who we just met five seconds ago gets the gun whilst your best-and-so-recently-estranged friend who could be the best shot if not for an unfortunate natural affliction doesn't get anything to defend himself with?"

Jak thought for a long moment. He thought about the many, many reasons why this was so, recalling the incident that had gotten them spotted, tried to polish it into a convincing case. There was a pause.

"Shut up," he explained.

* * *

_"Diaz," _Jak hissed, as he tried to pull himself onto a familiar pile of crates one-handed, "What the hell are you doing?"

The woman in question paused in her examination of the twisted, mechanical nightmare. Jak tried not to look at it, that insane jumble of needles, buttons, lights, scanners and shackles, because to do so would cause a shudder to start at the base of his spine and work its way up to his head. Diaz, on the other hand, could not take her eyes off it. She had been inspecting it for the past five minutes.

"It's ingenious. _Ingenious._" She let her eyes rove over the monstrosity that sat like a crazy artist's nightmare in the center of the room. "Using crystals to concentrate the Eco, and distil it into-"

"Hey! Light-Fingers! When you're done admiring the work of your friendly neighbor-hood dictator and his lovable sidekick Erol the Loon, maybe you could help us _get the hell out of here._" Daxter scowled dangerously at her. Her seemingly innocent bewilderment fooled no one, and finally Diaz grinned wickedly and bounded up the crates as though she'd been born with springs on her feet. "Hoy, darlin', you coming or what?"

Miala, who had been doing something fiddly with the console next to the machine, scrambled hastily up the crates whilst slipping something into her pouch. Jak pulled himself up after them, one hand held out to steady Daxter on his shoulder, removing his fingers just in time to keep them attached to his hand.

* * *

Beta 33-29743 was not having a good day, or night, or whatever the hell time it was in this stupid post. The Prison didn't have clocks, and the only way to tell that time was passing was either through the regular radio alerts, or by watching rust collect on the ceiling.

To recap: he was not having a good time, because the armor he was wearing constricted his blood-flow and was making pins and needles gather in his feet. As well as this, he was hella thirsty, and his partner had been called away to take care of some kind of disturbance, so he couldn't even torment him to relieve his boredom. To make matters worse, it was exceedingly dull guarding a bunch of stupid computers. All they did was bleep and glow. They didn't yell at him or swear or insult him when he kicked them.

He was standing boredly in front of some unidentifiable piece of junk, his regulation poker-straight posture loosened by the many hours of dull nothing, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Thinking his partner had finally returned, he turned around to see.

What he saw was a pair of gleaming silver eyes, an upside down grin, a mass of dirty green hair and a fist.

He stared in astonishment.

"Hiya bastard," said Miala, and punched him.

The blow connected with the bridge of his nose, and even with the armor, the force of it was enough to make stars explode in front of his vision as they both swore at the same time, the girl shaking her suddenly savagely aching hand. The Guard's outraged expression was nothing compared to the maniacal grin of the girl hanging upside down in front of him, who followed the punch by swinging down, back, then forwards, driving both her booted feet into his stomach. Her momentum threw him backwards into the computer panel, the impact driving the air from his lungs and causing several things to make ­­_crick_ noises.

Despite the roaring in his ears, Beta 33-29743 struggled to his feet, pain flaring in his back and neck. He got precisely three steps before his fuzzy vision made out the gun barrel in front of his nose.

He had already sworn inwardly when someone yelled "Miala!", causing the girl to glance behind herself, distracted. He took the opportunity to fumble for his rifle, grabbing it and barely missing her as she leapt from the rope she had been clinging too, landed neatly in a crouch and rolled out of the way. The bullets hummed and _spacked_ into the surrounding walls, rebounding and ricocheting dangerously around the room.

Miala dodged, leaping and ducking as best she could – until the trailing cuff on her pants caught on a knee-high piece of unidentifiable machinery. She fell heavily, her Blaster flying from her hand and clattering away into the darkness. Scrabbling wildly, Miala watched wide-eyed and helpless as the Guard advanced, gun raised and pointed directly at her heart-

When something bounced off the back of his helmet with a faint _clink._

He turned around, baffled, and paid for his moment of distraction when he suddenly pitched forwards, driven by the momentum of something small and super fast that impacted with his face.

Miala stood up carefully and walked over to the Guard. There was a smoking hole in his mask. She prodded him gently with her foot, and when he didn't move, she glanced upwards and said, "Thanks."

"No problem," said Jak, lowering his gun. He then looked around suspiciously. "What happened to your friend?"

"Here," said a voice, as Diaz hopped down from the machinery Miala had been perched on, landing unsteadily and having to make several attempts to stand up. "Whoa," she said, goggling at the Guard's body. "What'd he do?"

"Got in the way," Jak said coldly.

"Just so you know, Big Guy," Daxter said loudly, "That is really, _really_ creepy, as in Erol-standard creepy, and you really don't want to be trying to emulate that-" he fell silent as Jak gave him a venomous look.

"Anyway," Jak continued, as though restarting a conversation, "We're not far from the exit. As far as I know, this is the last pain-in-the-ass before we get there, and then I'll have to…I don't know…where do you live?" He directed this question towards Diaz, who had been admiring her nails. She shrugged.

"Helpful," Daxter commented.

"Bet it is," said Diaz, smiling.

It was only after Jak had stared for the door that Miala leaned over and said, "What are you so happy about?"

Diaz held up her knife. "I'm happy," she said, "because it bounced."

* * *

The door was there. It was small, and simple, and unobtrusive, but it triggered memories. Nighttime, and the Guards, and his second transformation. Kor, and Daxter, and the Kid. "Surrender and Die," they had said. Well, he certainly hadn't surrendered…

Clickit went, and then it was open, and he was staring out into the night.

He leapt, landing heavily but without injury on the dilapidated streets of the Slums. Miala was more cautious, clambering carefully down the side, Diaz sliding down after her.

Then they were all on the ground, staring up the stars. A fresh wind chose that moment to brush their faces, and even riddled with pollutants it was so much sweeter than the air inside the Prison. Night had fallen, some time ago, it seemed, the Second Star climbing halfway into the sky and bathing the world in its soft green glow, counterpoint to the dim bluish light of the moon.

There were voices. Voices of many hundreds, thousands of people, and the faint, high-pitched hum of hover-engines.

"Missed it," said Diaz quietly, and Jak looked at her and was surprised to see her eyes glittering over-bright. Then suddenly she was smiling – and laughing and crying and dancing, pulling Miala into a twirl that scattered the dust, her faded red hair flying out as she span.

Dancing for freedom.

Freedom so long denied.

"Glad to see Twinkle Toes is so happy," Daxter said grumpily.

* * *

Nano-Moose: Well, that's it. Next chapter WILL be the last one, or so help me, I'll just have to write it myself.

Vader: yeah, instead of making me do it…

Nano-Moose: SHUT UP! Well, the chapter was almost entirely pointless. Review anyway. Please. Pretty please. The next one'll have Torn in it. And I already have an epilogue. Heh heh. Just wait. Just you wait.


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